'Extremely dark day for North East engineering'

Mar 25 2009 By Christopher Knox, The Journal

By last February it was employing 150 people, but they were laid off when Sea Dragon said it was reviewing its contract with TAG and wanted now to have the work completed in Singapore.

Strenuous efforts to keep the work in the region followed and a new venture, Tyne Tees Rigs (TTR), was formed in an effort to persuade SeaDragon to remain faithful to its initial agreement. However, a SeaDragon spokesperson said: "The TTR proposal, which was assembled in a very short space of time, was certainly impressive and deserved the serious attention given to it.

"We reviewed the proposal  specifically to see if we could make it work inside our wider restructuring plan, which is now well advanced.

"This plan is built upon reducing the risk contained in the project as much as possible by building the rig in a yard which has a recent, successful track record of building semi-submersible rigs of this complexity, under the supervision of an industry-experienced project manager, who will then  go on  to operate the rig under charter.

"On this basis the board concluded that the TTR proposal could not be taken forward."

The news was received angrily by the TTR, which includes Darlington’s Cleveland Bridge and South Shields company McNulty Offshore Construction, which said they were more than equipped to handle the project.

Tyne Tees Rigs director Jon Dale said: "We are absolutely perplexed as to why this decision has been taken. The kind of companies involved in the proposals have tons of experience in work of this type.

"This project would have provided security to well over 1,000 workers in the region who are facing worrying times as a result of the recession.

"We don’t feel as though we have been given a fair crack of the whip. It’s an extremely dark day for the North East’s engineering sector."

Many had expected a negative decision after Sea Dragon boss John Darlington mistakenly sent TTR an email last week which made clear his intentions to pull out of Teesside.