AN UNDERUSED fabrication yard in the Highlands could be costing the local economy as much as £30million a year in lost revenue, according to a company specialising in the development of marine-related facilities.
Teesside-based Able UK is interested in buying the Nigg yard in Easter Ross, on the Cromarty Firth, to turn it into a multi-user facility.
The company said it could bring companies employing hundreds to Nigg by June if the deal could be concluded quickly.
The yard, which once employed 5,500 oil fabrication workers, closed in 2000 and Able has made its interest clear to agents for US giant KBR – which owns two-thirds of the site – since the site went on the market three years ago.
But now the yard, with its deep-water drydock, may have missed opportunities.
Able chairman and chief executive Peter Stephenson said his company could have had the yard up and running for almost three years and he would have expected it to have been turning over £20million to £30million a year by now.
He said: “We’re still interested in Nigg, but the sad thing is that we previously did have quite a bit of work for the yard.
“We’ve now got planning permission for our multi-user facility on the Tees and we’ve got some £200million worth of business in the next five years and around 2,000 jobs in this area, some of which would have gone to Nigg.
“We had a new construction company we were going to put there, which has now gone elsewhere. There’s other work that we’ve had to refuse, and some of the bigger contracts we were planning to bring to Nigg have now gone to China.”
Mr Stephenson believes Able lost out on Nigg because of bad publicity about its involvement with the breaking-up of redundant US Navy ships for the American government, which he insists the company never intended to carry out at Nigg.
He said: “We had been in very close discussions with the owners. The bad press happened and, within three weeks, the owners started to talk to Cromarty Firth Port Authority and gave them preferred-bidder status.”
KBR remains locked in a complex wrangle with the Wakelyn Trust, which owns 76 acres on the foreshore, over a condition of the trust’s lease to KBR covering reinstatement of the land.
Meanwhile, Highland Council is pursuing a compulsory purchase order (CPO) on the yard. It has also commissioned the preparation of a masterplan for Nigg and will be seeking a partner to take the plan forward once it has secured a CPO.
Maxine Smith, who represents Cromarty Firth on Highland Council, said: “As long as Able are aware of the uses that would be acceptable and not acceptable at Nigg, they could be the key to bringing this asset back into use.”
Martin Rattray, who is also a local member, said it concerned him that so much potential work had already been lost.
A KBR spokeswoman said they continued to seek viable options for the Nigg yard, but had not received offers that effectively addressed the requirements of the parties involved.