Rush to back biomass plan
TEESSIDE engineering firms eager to supply the green energy sector have been flooding into the London HQ of MGT Power - the firm behind plans to bring one of the biggest biomass plants in the UK to Teesport.
Tomorrow sees the first public exhibition of the plans at Middlesbrough’s South Bank Library, but already response to the news has been overwhelmingly positive, said director Ben Elsworth.
The company, backed by London-based hedge funds Trafalgar Asset Managers and MKM Longboat, was formed earlier this year by two partners formerly employed in the renewable and mainstream energy sectors.
They plan to open a Teesside office to oversee the £400m project and will eventually recruit 150 full-time staff for the facility.
“We have had a really fantastic response,” said Mr Elsworth. “Twenty local companies filled out the forms on our website (registering an interest to supply MGT) and others have emailed and phoned. Twenty one people qualified in power and engineering have already applied for jobs and some of the CVs are of very good calibre. We’d love to have more. We expect to be recruiting senior management by middle to late next year.”
Joint director Chris Moore added: “We knew there were high calibre people out there, but it’s very encouraging that there has been such a good response. We were very impressed.”
The plant will be the biggest investment of its type for Trafalgar and MKM, which between them manage more than $6bn funds and have in the past had financial interests in both Drax and Welsh Power.
Senior members of the MGT team, together with independent environmental auditors, will be available to answer questions tomorrow from 9.30am to 7pm.
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