Northumberland engineering company joins £250m offshore wind group

Northumberland based offshore engineering company Osbit has joined a new offshore wind group poised to invest £250m in capabilities across the offshore windfarm life-cycle by mid-2022.

Osbit, which already employs over 120 people across its Port of Blyth and Riding Mill sites, is now a founding member company in Venterra Group as it announces its public launch. The company also launching an accelerated growth campaign to significantly expand its workforce in North East England, with a range of highly skilled positions.

Venterra Group, which is UK-based, is a new offshore wind energy business focused on helping the world’s energy transition through wind power. The group is formed by industry experts and aims to become a leading offshore renewables energy services champion. By 2030, renewables are expected to provide 90% of the growth in global electricity demand, with global offshore wind capacity set to increase seven-fold from 33 GW in 2020 to around 250 GW.

Osbit joint managing director Brendon Hayward said: “We are thrilled to be joining Venterra Group, a hugely promising new enterprise which is fully aligned with Osbit’s vision of enabling energy transition.

“We’re now working to expand our team, and we are very hopeful that, in due course, this hugely exciting development will also encourage expansion within our core suppliers, the vast majority of whom are also North East England based.”

Osbit Joint Managing Director Robbie Blakeman adds: “Our team is very excited to enter a next chapter as part of Venterra. This opportunity will strengthen our business and our team, as well as supercharging our ability to develop highly innovative technology to enable energy transition.

In turn, this enables us to grow and increase our service offering across the global wind projects we are already active on in the North Sea, but also planned developments in the US and Asia.“

Ayman Asfari, Venterra executive chairman, comments: “Offshore wind energy is growing fast around the world and is essential to the global energy transition. But there is a supply chain crunch - the services industry supporting wind is highly fragmented and needs greater scale and additional capital to meet soaring demand from governments and developers with ambitious renewable energy commitments.

“Venterra has been created to help meet this challenge. We are bringing together companies with the right experience and specialist skills and providing them with funding and support to create a services champion with the scale and breadth required by the market.