Experience Triumphs in £100m Project

burning wood pellets

The joint experience of HBPW and Graham Construction working on the huge Immingham Renewable Fuels Terminal, was instrumental in winning it the contract to complete the civil engineering design on Liverpool’s new £100m biomass facility.

The new multi million pounds terminal at the Port of Liverpool – the first stage of which is scheduled to open next month – will handle up to three million tonnes of wood pellets a year and will help drive Drax Power Station’s decarbonisation programme in North Yorkshire.

HBPW Managing Partner, Paul Withers, who was instrumental in planning the original civil engineering direction for the massive Immingham scheme on behalf of Associated British Ports, said experience had proved everything.

“The IRFT biomass facility, which features eight silos, in the same way that Liverpool’s will have three larger ones, will also land millions of tonnes of biomass from around the world, with Drax as the principal beneficiary.

“At the outset the project for Peel Ports Ltd at Liverpool’s Gladstone Dock, got off to a slow start due to the original contractor going through a steep learning curve in order to understand the basic principles of designing a biomass import facility.

“HBPW had already cut its teeth on the Immingham project, as had Graham Construction, so it became the logical conclusion for Peel Ports to involve both parties when they transferred procurement of the construction to Graham’s and their specialist team, which included us.”

There will be three huge silos measuring 40 metres by 50 metres high at Liverpool’s Gladstone Dock, capable of holding a combined total of 100,000 tonnes of wood pellets, which will be offloaded  from vessels utilising Continuous Ship Unloaders (CSUs), before being deposited into silos via a conveyor belt system.

Wood pellets – to be shipped to Liverpool from North America – are a by-product of the commercial forestry and saw-milling industry and will provide the Selby-based power station with a new, sustainable low carbon fuel source.

In transitioning from coal to sustainable biomass Drax will reduce its CO2 footprint by some 12m tonnes per annum, the equivalent to removing 10% of the cars on the UK roads.

All of the wood pellets will also be sent to Drax at Selby by rail, ensuring there is no impact on the road network.

The new terminal is set to create an additional 47 permanent jobs at the Port of Liverpool, while construction of the wider facility and the supply chain will create  up to a further 300 jobs.

The terminal is being built as part of Peel Ports’ ambitious growth plans for the Port of Liverpool, with the company already investing £300m to create the UK’s most centrally located deep water container terminal, known as Liverpool2.

Leo Martin, Executive Director at Graham Construction, said “This project builds on the experience we have gained from building similar facilities on the east coast of England.  We will be designing and building a state of the art plant which will employ industry-leading technologies to ensure that the facility can be safely operated and maintained.”

The first phase of the new terminal is set to open next month and will become fully operational in July 2016.