Harland & Wolff win £8.5m barge contract

Harland & Wolff has been awarded an initial contract worth approximately £8.5 million with Cory Group for the fabrication of 11 barges.

The barges will be used by the UK waste management company to transport London’s recyclable and non-recyclable waste on the River Thames.

All of the barges will be fabricated at the company’s Belfast site, with four being built at the same time.

The first steel for the barges is due to be cut in around eight weeks’ time with the build due to be completed by mid 2023, according to announcement on Harland & Wolff’s website.

Fully fabricated barges will be sequentially delivered to Cory Group on the River Thames.

John Wood, chief executive, Harland & Wolff Group, said: “With this material contract, we shall be opening up our vast undercover fabrication halls in Belfast and making optimal use of our new robotic welding panel line.

“This contract gives us the opportunity to optimise our production flows in readiness for other fabrication programmes in our pipeline and it demonstrates the variety of fabrication work that our facilities are ideally placed to execute upon.”

The deal is the first for Harland and Wolff with London-based Cory Group.

Mr Wood added: “I am delighted to have secured this contract with our new client, Cory Group, and look forward to working very closely with them to deliver on their new barge investment programme going forward.”

The recent news comes after Harland & Wolff recently acquired the former HMS Atherstone from the Ministry of Defence (MOD).

The former HMS Atherstone is a mine hunting class vessel that is no longer in service. Harland & Wolff has acquired the vessel with a view to refurbishing it for non-military uses, discussions for which have already begun with interested parties.

Harland & Wolff is involved in a competition run by the MOD regeneration programme for the former HMS Quorn (M55). It believes that the acquisition of the former HMS Atherstone will significantly de-risk the M55 regeneration programme given that the two vessels share a number of spare parts and components. Should Harland & Wolff be awarded the regeneration programme for the M55, such spare parts and components on the HMS Atherstone will be utilised during the regeneration programme of the M55.

It expects negotiations with the MOD on the M55 regeneration programme to be completed in the next few weeks with an announcement to be made thereafter, should an award be made in Harland & Wolff’s favour.

Mr Wood added: “I am delighted that we have acquired the former HMS Atherstone. The benefits of this acquisition are two-fold; we now can significantly de-risk the M55 regeneration programme by utilising spares and component parts common to the two vessels, which has been recognised by MOD and will certainly help in closing out the negotiations over the next few weeks.

“Secondly, we also can utilise this platform as the basis for other clients’ projects, which will be a valuable revenue stream for 2023. I am pleased that we have generated a lot of interest for the repurposing of the former HMS Atherstone, and I expect to make announcements in this regard as soon as we have executed a refurbishment contract with a counterparty.”