The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Old Highland port revamp under way
Multi-millionpound works to bring a mothballed Highland harbour back up to speed are due to kick off in the coming days.
For many years, Ardersier Port was one of the largest oil rig fabrication yards in the world, employing as many as 4,500 workers.
But in more recent times the facility, around 14 miles east of Inverness, has lain unused, with offshore construction work going overseas.
Now new owners are revolutionising Ardersier – which, at 400 acres, is the largest brownfield port in the UK – with the hope of transforming it into Europe’s first fully circular energy transition site.
Under the ambitious plans, the facility, which shut up shop in 2001, will recycle retired oil rigs to make foundations for future fleets of floating offshore wind farms.
It is expected that thousands of jobs will be created at the site as a result off the revamp. In order to open up the port’s half-a-mile-long quayside, work is about to kick off on a £20 million, nine-month “capital dredge” programme.
As much as 2.5 million cubic metres of sand will be removed as part of the operation.
By opening up the port once more, Ardersier’s owners can begin pushing ahead with their five-year plan to turn it into an oil rig decommissioning facility.
It will also be home to a waste-from-energy recovery facility and a £300m green steel plant powered by offshore wind and energy from waste.
Sand cleared during dredging will also be used to create concrete, with a new production plant planned at the site.
The facilities will combine to make Ardersier Port the largest floating wind foundation fabrication, manufacturing and assembly facility in the UK.
In order to support their ambition to make Ardersier a hub for the emerging renewable technology, the port’s owners have struck an agreement with industry heavyweight BW Ideol.
Announced in September,
the deal guarantees the company – a joint venture between Ideol and BW Offshore – exclusive access to the port for the manufacture of its concrete floating wind foundations.
Once the dredging is complete, expected next summer, Ardersier will build a bespoke slipway, allowing floating oil and gas structures to be hauled onshore prior to removing all contaminants and decommissioning them.
Steve Regan, Ardersier Port owner, said: “The UK has set a world leading net-zero target to support green jobs.
“At Ardersier we can lead the UK’s green revolution by using circular economy practices to deliver new low-carbon infrastructure built on the by-products of our oil and gas past.
“This is a unique opportunity to create a world-leading industrial and offshore wind manufacturing facility here in the UK.
“It is a simple plan where each element makes sense as a standalone project – but when combined, the benefits to the economy, and the environment, are multiplied.”
Decommissioning and offshore wind are two markets that are on course to flourish. A recent report from trade body Oil and Gas UK estimates that there will be more than a million tonnes of North Sea topsides coming ashore this decade.
It also tipped total UK spend on decommissioning to top £16 billion by 2030.
Meanwhile, Scotland is currently in the midst of an offshore wind fest, with the results of the Scotwind leasing round due out in January. The process allows would-be developers to secure areas of seabed that can be used to house offshore wind farms.