750 Offshore Wind Manufacturing Jobs to Be Created On The Humber

The Able Marine Energy Park is a long-standing ambition to develop a world class marine energy cluster on the south bank of the Humber in Yorkshire, England. SeAH, the largest steel tube manufacturer in South Korea, will build a monopile facility as the first step in realising this ambition.

The Able Group and SeAH have signed an exclusive memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a large scale monopile manufacturing facility that is expected to create up to 400 hundred direct employment opportunities and a similar number of indirect (supply chain) jobs. The facility will have an initial capacity of 162,000 tonnes per year with a planned expansion to 320,000 tonnes possible.

SeAH is South Korea’s largest pipe manufacturer, producing steel and aluminum tubes for many industrial applications. These included offshore wind with tube production for jackets, bracings and monopiles.

The investment has been secured with the aid of grant funding from the UK Government’s Offshore Wind Manufacturing Investment Support scheme. The £160 million grant fund was announced in 2020 as part of the Government’s Ten Point Plan for improving offshore wind manufacturing in the UK.

SeAH is planning to use £117 million in developing the monopile facility and the government is expecting up to 750 new jobs by 2030. Joosung Lee, COO if SeAH Steel Holdings Corporation, said, “Based on the active support and trust from the UK government, it is meaningful for SeAH that investment toward the monopile factory is in full swing.”

This announcement is a significant step for Able who has been attempting to develop the Able Marine Energy Park for a number of years. Investment has come close on a number of occasions with both Ørsted and RWE (then Innogy) thought to have been interested. Able UK executive chairman Peter Stephenson said, “The offshore wind sector is potentially on the cusp of something very special. We have a clear and unambiguous policy from Whitehall through the Sector Deal in the Industrial Strategy, and the increasingly demanding targets for both power generation and the extent of UK content…Able Marine Energy Park can and will play a vital role in this process to, first and foremost, provide purpose-built heavy-duty deep-water quays and, just as crucially, a large expanse of adjacent supporting hinterland – 353 acres.”

The UK Government also announced grant support for Smulders Projects UK, to aid in their investment and upgrade of facilities to enable the manufacture of offshore wind turbine transition pieces. Smulders will invest up to £70 million in their current facility in Wallsend, Newcastle, England. The facility currently builds jackets for offshore wind, including the Moray East Offshore Wind Farm.

Announcing the grant funding, Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business and Energy Secretary, said “Today’s investments will not only put the wind in the sails of the UK’s industrial heartlands, creating and supporting thousands of good quality jobs, they will also benefit the whole of the Britain as we work to onshore more manufacturers, attract inward investment and ramp up export opportunities.”

These recent announcements are welcome news for the North East of England, improving prospects as the nation looks to a post pandemic recovery.