Metal Trades, LLC

Metal Trades, LLC, doing business as Keel Southeast - Yonges Island, manufactures and repairs military watercraft as a prime contractor to the Department of the Army and Department of the Navy, competing consistently through full and open competition with no set-aside designations. The company is a for-profit limited liability company and manufacturer of goods based in Hollywood, South Carolina, with operations and performance at Meggett, South Carolina.

Metal Trades operates as a dedicated prime contractor across its entire federal footprint—all 1,417 awards in the source are prime contracts or IDIQs with zero subcontract work. The company holds two significant Army Watercraft Sustainment Maintenance (AWSM) indefinite-delivery contracts awarded in January 2026: AWSM Zone 1 (CONUS operations) with a ceiling of $241.4 million through July 2031, and AWSM Zone 3 (Pier Side) with a ceiling of $69.8 million through July 2031. These are replacement awards following the company's prior generation Zone 1 and Zone 3 IDIQs (each $241 million and $186 million respectively, running through January 2026), confirming Metal Trades as the Army's anchor watercraft sustainment prime across its continental and overseas regional portfolio.

Metal Trades' customer concentration is heavily skewed toward the Department of the Navy (1,082 awards, 76% of total awards) and the Department of the Army Materiel Command TACOM Life Cycle Management Command (99 awards, $1.26 billion combined potential value). The top five customer organizations account for 95% of awards, with secondary Army customers including Army Materiel Command Sustainment Command (40 awards, $46.3 million), Army Materiel Command Contracting Command Detroit Arsenal (9 awards, $44.3 million), and the Army Corps of Engineers (3 awards, $12.8 million). The Navy dominance in award count reflects a historical footprint—awards span back to 1980—but the current dollar concentration tilts Army, particularly TACOM.

Recent representative work under the Army vehicles includes a $7.33 million delivery order for modular causeway system pontoon modules (awarded September 2025, completion July 2026), a $4.99 million order for Landing Craft Mechanized 8542 repair and sustainment (awarded September 2025, completion July 2026), and a $4.3 million order for Landing Craft Utility 2026 programmed repairs (awarded July 2025, completion March 2026). Smaller work includes a $1.41 million programmed dry-docking and repairs order for Landing Craft Mechanized 8541 (awarded June 2025, completion December 2025) and a $206.5 thousand order for Landing Craft Utility 2004 maintenance (awarded September 2025, completion October 2025). The company's NAICS footprint is dominated by Ship Building and Repairing (199 awards) with secondary exposure to Other Support Activities for Water Transportation (26 awards). The PSC mix confirms the scope: Maint/Repair/Rebuild Of Equipment—Ships, Small Craft, Pontoons, and Floating Docks (916 awards) anchors the portfolio, with Non-Nuclear Ship Repair (East) representing 345 awards.

Activity has remained roughly flat over the past five years—ranging from 7 to 9 awards annually (2022–2025)—with 4 awards recorded in 2026 to date. The recompete cliff in the next twenty-four months is minimal: only 2 awards with ultimate completion dates falling in that window carry combined potential value of $10.9 million. Combined potential value across all 1,417 awards totals $1.37 billion; combined obligated dollars stand at $409.4 million (30% of potential value), indicating substantial unobligated ceiling across the active prime footprint. The two newly awarded Zone 1 and Zone 3 IDIQs with their combined $311.2 million ceiling and July 2031 completion dates anchor Metal Trades' forward pipeline and represent the culmination of two decades of sustained performance as the Army's dedicated watercraft sustainment prime.

SCI-reportable federal service contract activity is limited. The source shows $3.8 million in invoiced revenue in FY2022 across 8.5 FTEs on two prime records; no SCI invoicing is recorded for FY2023 or FY2024, indicating that Metal Trades' primary federal work (watercraft construction and repair) falls outside SCI's service-contract scope and is instead captured as goods and repair deliverables. The single SCI data point on hourly rates—$113.92/hr at the 10th, median, and 90th percentiles in FY2022—reflects minimal government-paid labor activity within SCI's $150,000-plus threshold; Metal Trades' compensation model is predominantly fixed-price repair and construction delivery rather than time-and-materials service contracts. Across SCI-reported prime records, subcontractors account for 9% of total hours, with one named subcontractor identified, but this represents a negligible signal given the extremely low SCI coverage of the company's total federal work.