THE UK OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS FABRICATORS DIRECTORY
2014
page 4
O
ne of the key aims of the recently published
Oil and Gas Industrial Strategy
is tomaximise
opportunities and investment in the new
developments coming forward for the benefit of thewhole
UK economy. Wewant to promote and support a dynamic
and competitive supply chainwhich sustains high quality
jobs in the UK.
This booklet showcases the capability and capacity of our
important UK fabrication supply chain. It highlights an
impressive proficiency within this sector, and onewhich
is alsomirrored in our indigenous expertise in front end
engineering and design.
We havewitnessed a renaissance in the fabrication sector
over the past three years with UK yards winning significant
contracts and demonstrating their capability and
competitive edge in building iconic UK Continental Shelf
(UKCS) platforms oncemore.
Recent successful projects:
• The Apache Forties platformcompleted at OGN yard in
Tyneside in 2013
Looking forward to 2014:
• Premier Oil’s Solan project where the topsides and
jackets are currently under construction in the BiFab yard
in Fife
• GDF’s Cygnus project where the jackets and topsides are
currently being built between Heerema in Hartlepool and
BiFab in Fife
UK yards are also busy fabricating newUKCS infrastructure
forMontrose and Golden Eagle, andwewant tomaintain
this level of activity.
The number of developments and the capital expenditure
expected over the next five years ismore thanwe have
ever seen in this basin. It is therefore important that we
continue to build the strength and competitiveness of this
sector and that British operators recognise the benefits of
workingwith businesses and afford thema fair and open
opportunity towork on their projects.
The oil and gas industry is a huge sector both for security
of energy supply and also for the prosperity and jobs it
supports across our national and regional economies.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)
works to provide key industry intelligence information
to the supply chain, including visibility of all upcoming
developments through Project Pathfinder. Pathfinder
is tracking around 60 current UKCS projects, as well as
an increasing number of brownfield and incremental
developments coming forward as a result of recent
fiscal changes.
2013 was an outstanding year for the North Sea with a
total of 34 new and incremental projects approved by
DECC with associated capital expenditure of £9.4 billion
in new investment. 2014 looks to be just as strong. We
must harness this prosperity for UK business and use
it to promote continuity of projects which will sustain
a level of competence within this important sector. In
doing so, this will create and support a large number
of skilled jobs, many of which are in economically
challenged parts of the country.
Where there is UK capability and capacity for fabrication
it is important these companies are afforded a fair
opportunity to bid for thework, sowe can build upon the
skills and expertisewe have developed in this sector, and
have been able to export globally.
I assure youwewill be pursuing policies to ensurewe
extract asmuch of our own oil and gas as we possibly
can, and at the request of the Secretary of State,
Sir IanWood is currently leading an in-depth reviewwith
recommendations tomaximise economic recovery of our
indigenous resource from the UKCS.
Rt HonMichael FallonMP,
Minister of State for Energy
andMinister for Business and Enterprise
Foreword from the
Rt Hon Michael Fallon MP
