Bid to save rig jobs
DARLINGTON-based Cleveland Bridge has formed an alliance with South Shields fabrication specialist McNulty Offshore Construction Limited in a bid to keep the SeaDragon project in the North East.
The joint partnership, Tyne Tees Rigs, will table proposals today in a meeting with SeaDragon Offshore, the Cayman Islands-based company that originally commissioned the building of at least one giant drilling rig at the Haverton Hill shipyard.
Following a breakdown of negotiations, SeaDragon terminated its contract with Tees Alliance Group (TAG) - the cluster of companies involving Cleveland Bridge that was due to carry out the work - and decided to make the rigs in Singapore instead.
TAG member Cleveland Bridge and McNulty have formed a separate partnership in a move that could safeguard hundreds of jobs locally.
Cleveland Bridge MD Brian Rogan explained: “We are putting proposals to SeaDragon with a view to giving them an alternative option than to take the rigs to Singapore.
“It’s early days. The first meeting is today and we’ll see where we go from there. The whole idea is to safeguard jobs in the North-east.”
If the bid is successful, he said it may be possible to retain some or all of the 140 Teesside-based jobs earmarked to go at Cleveland Bridge after it was told by Sea Dragon to scale back work on the project.
TAG, which is still trying to resolve contract talks with Sea Dragon, said it would continue to work with Cleveland Bridge.
A spokesperson said: “TAG will still go on. We are looking at future work including a joint project with Cleveland Bridge.”
TAG is bidding for two other projects that could generate millions of pounds of investment and create hundreds of local jobs.
One is said to be a similar size to the SeaDragon project, while the other is a renewable energy scheme.
A decision is expected on the first of these projects “within weeks”.
Understood to be the country’s biggest non-military fabrication project, SeaDragon was expected to create a total of around 1,200 jobs and herald a new dawn at the Haverton Hill shipyard, which had reopened for business in March last year - 29 years after it had closed down.
Local firms were due to build the topsides for at least one of the rigs here on Teesside after the hulls had been made in Russia.
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