Tyne dredging works to attract Scottish offshore business

Newcastle-based Shepherd Offshore has opened the Tyneside’s Neptune Energy Park for bigger vessels after dredging 20,000 cubic metres of silt.

The firm took two months to move the mountain of silt, enough to fill Newcastle Civic Centre’s banqueting hall five times over, which will now allow or deep-hulled vessels to berth at the Park.

It means Neptune Energy Park can now store reel products for existing customers including GE Oil & Gas, Duco and Bridon Ropes and Shepherd hope it will attract Scottish offshore business to Tyneside.

The Park’s general manager, Stewart Boak, said: “This is a vital step forward in attracting more business to the Tyne.

“It’s a major new facility for the riverside. More than 7,300 tonnes of fabrications, modules and product reels can be stored next to the quayside.

“Nearly 14,000 square metres of developed quayside concrete fabrication and assembly area is available at the deep water quay making it an ideal location to meet the needs of our existing customers and new customers.

“It’s a huge, open concrete space which offers tremendous facilities and makes the Tyne an increasingly attractive place for business.

“There has been a lot of interest shown already, particularly from Aberdeen, which is widely recognised as the oil and gas capital of Europe, and where multinational companies are looking for extra capacity.”

Neptune is a redevelopment of the former Neptune shipyard at Walker and features a 700 tonne heavy load out ‘pad.’

The dredging works have created an 8.5 metre deep water berth at the Park’s 760 metre long quay, allowing for larger vessels to load and off-load.

Next to the load out pad is also a 217 metre-long dry dock which is one of the largest test and demonstration facilities in Europe.

Recently the dock was used to construct the base for the watertight concrete sections of the new Tyne Tunnel before they were floated down the river and sunk into position.

Last month a 7000 tonne concrete pontoon, part of a £25m Humberside port development, was successfully built and floated out dock before being towed to Grimsby for use on the new roll-on, roll-off terminal.