We speak to Lewis Gillie, Havenus CEO, about the ongoing works at Ardersier Port, where the company is building what is set to be one of Scotland's biggest offshore wind hubs.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Back in the 70s, 80s and 90s, they built the first generation of energy from Scotland out
00:11of here.
00:12It was basically oil platforms and jackets that were built from here and taken out to
00:17the North Sea to produce energy.
00:20And what we expect to see when we open from the end of next year is the next generation
00:25of energy being built out of here, namely wind turbines.
00:32We're in the process here behind us of rebuilding the quay to replace the quay that was originally
00:39used here back in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
00:45It's very exciting.
00:46When we came here in March of 2023, there was quite a bit of debris in the water.
00:54There was quite a bit of debris on the land, so we spent a long time tidying it up.
00:59We spent even longer working on consents and engineering that allowed us to begin the construction
01:06in April of this year.
01:08And I'm happy to say that actually two days ago, we completed the construction of the
01:12new quay wall, which is almost three kilometers long.
01:18We completed it ahead of time and on budget, which was really great news for the team.
01:25We'll now work over the next few months doing civils working and dredging work so that we
01:32can open the facility next year.
01:36We've had a lot of potential customers visit us.
01:40But since we actually began the construction, the number of visitors has increased exponentially.
01:47The ones who would be our likely customers come in from two different areas.
01:51One are the developers of the project out in the North Sea.
01:55There's 45 gigawatts of offshore wind has been licensed out here.
01:59And that activity is very land intensive.
02:02So they need large sites like this with a quay that they can access their offshore site from.
02:08So all of those customers have visited and continue to visit on a regular basis.
02:13The second group of visitors that we have who are potential customers are large international
02:19customers who are interested in manufacturing and assembling components for the offshore
02:24wind industry here, which aligns with the Scottish and UK government objectives of adding
02:29large local content, which in turn should create many, many jobs and many, many further
02:34investment opportunities here.
02:36So over the coming years, we would love to see a significant amount of investment in
02:42this site and also a significant number of jobs created here.