Aberdeen Harbour's plans to expand its facilities into a bay south of the existing harbour has been sanctioned by the harbour board.
The £350 million project, which was recently granted planning consent in the form of Marine Licenses and a Harbour Revision Order by the Scottish Government, will be built by Dragados UK, part of Spain's ACS Group, with construction work starting early 2017. The development is scheduled to be completed by 2020.
The new facilities, in Nigg Bay, will include 1400m of new quay, with a water depth of up to 10.5m and will create an additional 125,000sq m of lay-down area. An independent study, commissioned by Scottish Enterprise, estimates that the development will generate an additional £1 billion per annum to the economy by 2035, and will create an additional 7000 equivalent jobs.
Aberdeen Harbour, which dates back nearly 900 years, currently handles over 27 million tonnes of shipping and over 4 million tonnes of cargo. Activity at the port generates over £1.5 billion to the region’s economy each year and helps sustain around 12,000 full-time equivalent jobs.
“Following a detailed engagement process, Aberdeen Harbour Board, in partnership with Dragados UK, a main contractor, will develop facilities over the next three years that will represent a step change in the marine support capabilities in Scotland. These will transform the port’s ability to accommodate the trend for larger vessels we are witnessing across a whole range of industries," says Colin Parker, Chief Executive of Aberdeen Harbour Board.
“The expansion will afford existing customers the opportunity to diversify and expand their interests, whilst attracting new customers and markets to the port, including up-scaled decommissioning activity, a more significant share of the available cruise vessel fleet and larger more cost-effective commercial vessels.”
Funding arrangements for the project incorporated commercial borrowing from the European Investment Bank, and funding from the Aberdeen City & Region Deal. Support for the project’s feasibility study was also received Scottish Enterprise and from the 2013 Annual Program Call of the European Commission’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) Program.