Able UK’s chairman and CEO announced that it is making a bid for a yard in Scotland. If the bid is successful the company hopes to develop the facility as a ‘Multi User’ Facility.
Peter Stephenson, Able UK’s chairman, also criticized what he described as ‘unjustified scaremongering’ over the possibility of the Nigg yard on the Cromarty Firth being used for the scrapping of American vessels from Hartlepool.
“I can confirm that we have submitted a bid for the Nigg yard but as yet we are still awaiting the outcome. The reason we are interested in the yard is to develop it as a ‘Multi User Facility’ providing facilities for a number of primarily marine related clients undertaking a wide range of activities including port activities.
Some of those tenants may be involved in the marine recycling industry primarily for redundant marine structures from the North Sea similar to those that where constructed at Nigg during the last 30 years.
“We also wish to see Nigg Bay developed to exploit the rapidly growing renewable energy industries —recently we have established a division specifically to develop opportunities in the renewables field with the intention of providing facilities and operating bases at Teesside and Nigg Bay.
“We are confident that the site will create a significant number of jobs if we are able to develop this facility—and I would expect that there could be employment for as many as a thousand people in different companies within five years on the site.
“I do think it is unfortunate if at this early stage, before we even know whether we have been successful in our bid, there is unjustified scaremongering and speculation. The reality is that currently there is no planning permission for recycling at Nigg so it is obviously nonsense to suggest that we are interested in acquiring it for that purpose—and in fact any proposals for the expansion of activities there would require all the appropriate planning permissions and environmental assessments.
“Already there has been considerable misinformation about both the position in regard to our application for the development and expansion of our TERRC (Teesside Environmental Reclamation and Recycling Centre) facility at Graythorp and our contract for the recycling of a number of American vessels.
“The facts are we are currently providing additional information to the Environment Agency and other bodies during consultations over our planning application and we remain confident that our plans should be approved. The American vessels which our decommissioning division is planning to recycle under a contract with the US maritime agency MARAD are not ‘toxic’ and contain no greater level of hazardous materials than any other ships or marine structures of their age.
“Our company has a long record of working with some of the world’s major companies in the demolition and recycling fields—including the decommissioning of many redundant oil and gas structures—and only recently we were the only contractor in Europe to receive an award from BP for our record in the health, safety and environment fields.”