Confidence over ​Arnish future

Following completion of the first barge last week, the second is already in the paint hall awaiting the finishing touches.

Within the next few weeks, a tug will shuttle the two vessels successively from Lewis to the Thames.

The five barges being built at Arnish are part of a 33 barge order won by Harland & Wolff.

This is in line with the company’s strategy of de-risking projects by spreading work around its four yards at Belfast, Appledore, Methil and Arnish.

The general manager at Arnish, Albert Allan, stressed the importance of the latest landmark which has been achieved “on time and on budget”. Completion of the barges will provide work at the yard for the rest of this year.

Mr Allan said it had been “a fantastic job” and “a great training ground” for all the apprentices recruited over the past three years. He added that the client, the waste firm Cory, are “very happy with the quality”.

These are the first barges to be built at Arnish since the “Lonka”, one of the first projects in the 1970s under the original operators, Lewis Offshore.

With 153 people, including 21 apprentices, now employed at the yard, they are now engaged in preparatory work on the next big contract – six subsea manifolds for One Subsea, the first product of a five year “master services agreement” with a leading oil services company supplying subsea infrastructure across the globe.

The value of the first Arnish contract under the agreement is around £3 million. The manifolds are used in oil and gas platform infrastructure and are capable of withstanding exceptionally high pressures.

Welcoming the “master” agreement in March, Harland & Wolff chief executive, John Wood, said: “These specialised subsea structures are a new product area for us and we expect that successful delivery of this contract will open up significant opportunities for additional contracts in subsea infrastructure in the future.”

This first job under the agreement should take until August next year to complete and will involve specialist pipe welding techniques requiring skills which, said Mr Allan, have not been deployed at Arnish for 20 years.

Confirmation is currently awaited of a large contract to build a “new port” for the Falkland Islands which will involve fabrication of four huge pontoons to replace existing facilities in Port Stanley. Harland & Wolff have been named as preferred bidders for the £120 million contract with Arnish set to get a share of the work.

Last year, Harland & Wolff were named as part of a team which has won a £1.6 billion Ministry of Defence contract to assemble three new vessels. Once again, it is expected that a share of this work will cascade to Arnish.

Albert Allan said: “We are very busy but not busy enough”. His target remains to build the workforce to 300 in order to compete for larger contracts.

In April, Harland & Wolff put forward a proposal to create a “second deep water port” at Arnish, devoted to work on renewable energy projects.

​