Teesside shipyard re-opens

A £300 million contract awarded to Tees Alliance Group promises to bring a new lease of life to the Haverton Hill shipyard near Billingham, Teesside in England and will create up to 800 skilled jobs. The first steel cutting got under way to build two state of the art drilling rigs with the possibility of a third to follow. It is claimed to be the biggest non-military fabrication project in the country said regeneration agency One NorthEast.

The hulls for the giant drilling rigs are currently being built in Russia and will be transported to Teesside later in the year. The Tees Alliance Group, whose members include Cleveland Bridge, McGill Services and K-Home Engineering, will then build the topsides.

The rigs, which have been ordered by SeaDragon Offshore, a Cayman Islands company, have been designed to work in tough conditions and, once completed, will be used to drill for oil and gas in depths of up to 10,000ft in locations such as the Gulf of Mexico.

Chief executive of the Tees Alliance Group David Eason said: “We?ve been leaders in offshore construction for most of the 70s and 80s and early 90s, but since then there?s been nothing. Hopefully we are now back on track to become world leaders again.”

For 60 years, the shipyard at Haverton Hill, known as the Furness Shipyard, was one of the finest yards in Britain with twelve building berths capable of constructing vessels up to 230 metres long. The shipyards closed in 1969 by which time its most recent orders had been for supertankers.