BELFAST shipyard owner Harland & Wolff Group Holdings has been awarded an £8.5 million contract to build 11 huge barges in the shadows of the David and Goliath cranes.
Cory Group, one of the UK’s leading waste management and recycling companies, has placed the order through its Riverside Resource Recovery subsidiary.
Cory is planning to invest more than £800 million in its operations and river infrastructure over the coming years, and the Belfast-built barges will be used to transport London's recyclable and non-recyclable waste on the River Thames.
Building work will take place on Queen's Island, with first steel expected to be cut by the end of July.
The programme schedule allows for four barges to be built in tandem, with the entire build programme ending around mid-2023.
According to Harland & Wolff group chief executive John Wood, the company will be opening up its vast undercover fabrication halls in Belfast and making optimal use of its new robotic welding panel line.
He added: "This contract gives us the opportunity to optimise our production flows in readiness for other fabrication programmes in our plans and it demonstrates the variety of fabrication work that our facilities are ideally placed to execute upon.
"I am delighted to have secured this contract with our new client, Cory Group, and look forward to working closely with them to deliver on their new barge investment programme going forward."
H&W's Belfast yard is one of Europe's largest heavy engineering facilities, with deep water access, two of Europe's largest dry docks, ample quayside and vast fabrication halls.
As a result of the acquisition of Harland & Wolff (Appledore) in August 2020, the company has been able to capitalise on opportunities at both ends of the ship-repair and shipbuilding markets where there will be significant demand.
Last month Harland and Wolff's parent company Infrastrata Plc, which bought the company out of administration in late 2019, said its business was improving after announcing a pre-tax loss of £25.5 million for its latest reporting period.
In accounts for the 17 months to December 31 last, Harland and Wolff Group Holdings PLC said revenues grew to £18.5m - up from £1.5m for the year to July 31 2020.
The company has now absorbed pre-tax losses of around £36m in the last two reporting periods, with losses reaching £25.5m in the latest 17 months.
Meanwhile Harland & Wolff Group says it has also acquired the former HMS Atherstone from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The mine hunting class vessel is no longer in service, and H&W says it want to refurbish Atherstone for non-military uses, discussions for which have already commenced with interested parties.
