Renewables set to revive giant of oil boom era

THE name was once synonymous with the oil boom which brought an extensive workforce and bulging wage packets to a quiet corner of the north-west Highlands.

At the height of its operation in the 1970s, the fabrication yard at Kishorn in Wester Ross employed 3,500 workers who came from all over the country to build super-sized oil and gas platforms. The world's largest man-made moveable object - the 600,000 tonne Ninian oil platform - was constructed there as were the huge concrete caissons to form the base for the Skye Bridge.

Now the largely dormant giant is about to be roused again and primed for a new industrial challenge.

A multi-million pound masterplan had been drawn up for Kishorn which could create hundreds of skilled jobs and put the yard at the forefront of the growing renewables revolution.

The facility has been earmarked for a two-stage project, costing 11.75 million, to develop it as a leading base to manufacture offshore wind turbines as well as devices for the emerging wave and tidal energy sector.

Behind the redevelopment plan are Leiths, a quarry products and construction materials company based in Aberdeen, and transport and logistics business Ferguson Transport.

The companies, who have quarrying and freight shipping operations at Kishorn, have created Kishorn Port Limited and bought the yard's facilities, including the dry dock, 64 acres of land, slipway and four deepwater quays.

It is now seeking a third, energy-related business partner to work with them on the infrastructure-related phase - including restoring the dry dock gates, provide facilities for heavy cranes and other services - before looking to Phase II's estimated 9m investment in buildings, equipment, power and other resources.

Planning procedures for the site are already in hand.

The move comes as a Scottish Government report confirmed the yard as a national priority for commercial redevelopment to supply manufacturing, assembly and fabrication for offshore renewables.

The report, the National Renewables Infrastructure Plan (NRIP), confirmed that Kishorn could be made ready for less investment than ten other prime sites it identifies.

Alasdair Ferguson, a Kishorn Port director, said: "Kishorn is a sleeping giant of a manufacturing and service hub for renewables, with the potential to create hundreds of skilled jobs for the west Highlands in sectors like engineering, fabrication and transport."And it's a light sleeper too - the initial estimated cost to restore the infrastructure - in phase one of our masterplan - is just 2.75m, compared with between 5m and 65m for the other nominated sites around Scotland."

Fellow director Simon Russell, chief executive of Leiths, added: "We can take the project to market in the knowledge that we could beat the NRIP report's three-year infrastructure readiness target by more than half."

The NRIP report, produced by Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, stresses the need for renewables ports to ensure good resources, including quaysides, hardstanding and utilities like power and water, for strong industry demand within three years or sooner.

It cites Kishorn as a priority, in its own right and as a core part of a wider Scottish "West Coast Cluster" of ports carrying out manufacturing and other operations.

A separate report last week from Scottish Renewables and Scottish Enterprise said offshore windfarms could create nearly 50,000 jobs across Scotland over the next decade and generate 7.1 billion of investment by 2020.