As work on one of Scotland’s newest port quays progresses rapidly, one of the world’s largest crawler cranes has been on site carrying out the mammoth task of driving 210 huge piles into the ground, so that the project can move to the next stage.
Nigg Energy Park, known historically as Port of Nigg and located in Ross on the north shore of the entrance to the Cromarty Firth, has over 900 meters of deep-water quayside and caters for some of the world’s largest vessels.
It boasts the largest dry dock of its type in Europe but was already working at full tilt before facility owner, Global Energy Group, decided to construct a new ‘East Quay’ to complement the existing South and West Finger Quays.
This new 700m ‘combi wall’ quay is now well on its way to completion as engineer, Tom Flint, explains.
“The build has involved driving 29m long tubular piles, each measuring 1220mm across, into the ground which has been a mammoth task taking nigh on six months with the assistance of a piling hammer and one of the largest crawler cranes in the world, a Liebherr LR1300.
A reinforced concrete capping beam will be cast on top of the piles as part of the next stage.
“Thereafter, 30m lighting towers as well as other quay ‘furniture’ including huge bollards used by ships to tie on to when berthing, will be moved into place. HBPW has designed all of these additions,” said Tom.
The port has a strong reputation for working with ships serving the renewables and oil and gas sectors and this latest scheme represents an investment of £18.9m.
Once completed, the new facility is forecast to bring an additional £11.24 million in new business to the area in its first three years and create up to 39 new jobs.
Client: Global Energy Group
Contractor: Farrans Construction