Offshore Energy

Prime central location

South Tyneside’s location on the banks of the River Tyne, and its proximity to opportunities in the North Sea, puts it right at the heart of the UK’s offshore energy sector. 

The UK has the largest installed capacity of offshore wind in the world and a significant number of projects currently in development or planned.  Businesses located in South Tyneside are ideally positioned to take advantage of direct access to the North Sea and benefit from developments at Hornsea (86nm), Seagreen (67nm) and Dogger Bank (98nm) as well as North Sea oil and gas opportunities.

Strong supply chain

With over 5,000 energy related businesses located in the North East with an international reputation for excellence in oil and gas, subsea technology, marine engineering and offshore renewables, the Tyne has the capacity to be a major hub for the installation and maintenance of offshore wind farms and service the supply chain that will grow from it, as well as building on its existing reputation in the oil and gas sector.

Equinor have built the new Operations and Maintenance (O&M) base at the Port of Tyne in South Shields for the Dogger Bank Wind Farm development (a joint venture partnership between SSE Renewables and Equinor).  The new multi-million pound facility is the onshore base for the efficient operation of what is set to become the world’s largest offshore wind farm.

The Port of Tyne has signed a contract with the Dutch marine engineering company, Van Oord, to provide a storage and foundation marshalling base for RWE’s Sofia Offshore Wind Farm. Van Oord’s activities encompass the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of the wind turbine foundations and inter-array cables for Sofia. 

Sites and Premises

A range of property and land options are on offer in South Tyneside for businesses involved in the offshore energy and marine economy, including riverside sites, industrial premises, Grade-A office accommodation, managed workspace and the world-class International Advanced Manufacturing Park; providing a perfect foundation for companies of all sizes choosing the borough as their base, including:

• Tyne Dock Enterprise Park – located in South Shields, offering up to 7.1 hectares of land with Enterprise Zone status and 550 metres of direct river frontage. It’s fully integrated into a mature logistics infrastructure.
• Tyne Renewables Quay – located in South Shields the Tyne Clean Energy Park, provides unrestricted 24/7 marine access. Available immediately for development, the site is deal for large scale component manufacturing requiring access to a deep water berth, or a large-scale pre-assembly and installation base.
• Church Bank – This site in Jarrow extends to circa 6.51 acres (2.633 Ha) and is relatively level and regular in shape. The Port of Tyne’s deep-sea facility at Tyne Dock is immediately adjacent.
• Build to Suit Sites – The Port of Tyne offers a number of development sites appropriate for the delivery of build to suit facilities ranging from 4 to 35 acres and able to accommodate up to 750,000 sq ft (subject to planning).
• Tyneside Works – a former chemicals site in Jarrow offering 13.35 hectares of land with 275m river frontage suitable for development of quay edge. The current owners are to fully remediate the site, leaving an office building and gatehouse with weighbridge. Email: business@southtyneside.gov.uk for more information.
• International Advanced Manufacturing Park (IAMP) – spanning 245 acres of land across South Tyneside and Sunderland, the IAMP has capacity to create 4 million square feet of bespoke manufacturing premises.  Being located alongside the A19, the site has excellent transport links just 6 miles from the Port of Tyne and 7 miles from the Port of Sunderland.
• Jarrow Business Centre Manufacturing Zone – the Manufacturing Zone within Jarrow Business Centre provides high quality manufacturing space within a managed centre, just a few miles away from Port of Tyne, ideal for start-ups and smaller businesses. 
• One Trinity Green – One Trinity Green, in South Shields, South Tyneside Council’s managed workspace has seen the growth of a number of offshore businesses taking advantage of its business incubator, mixed workspace and services, using the borough’s strong strategic location to boost their offshore sector connections. The site, located close to the Port of Tyne, offers great potential for businesses wanting to access the UK offshore market.

Relevant experience and skills

The region’s heritage of engineering excellence in heavy and marine engineering, shipbuilding and offshore oil and gas extraction has resulted in highly skilled, available workforce, benefitting from labour costs for an engineer almost 15% lower than that of Aberdeen.

Its capacity in production engineering is particularly relevant to high-volume offshore development.

Key skills include:

• Cable and umbilical manufacturing and expertise
• Ploughing, laying and subsea cable connection
• Sea bed operations and undersea connection
• Project management and design engineering techniques
• Specialist logistics and professional services
• Marine engineering and general engineering services

World-leading research, innovation and training

The region has a fantastic array of world-class R&D and testing facilities such as the National Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult testing facility, Tyne Pressure Testing and the National Centre for Subsea and Offshore Engineering.

There are number of colleges in the area delivering bespoke training for tomorrow’s energy workforce including South Shields Marine School, an OPITO approved training centre with a worldwide reputation for outstanding maritime training.

Companies based here

A&P Tyne

Providing world class ship repair, conversion and fabrication services across the marine and renewables sectors, A&P North East operates two sites which includes A&P Tyne in Hebburn and A&P Tees in Middlesbrough.

A&P Tyne operates the largest dry dock on the east coast of England and extensive fabrication facilities which includes storage, load-out capabilities and fully equipped workshops to manage all projects from simple ship repairs to major complex ship conversions.

A&P Tyne is a centre of excellence for ferries, offshore support vessels and tankers with clients including P&O, Stena and Prysmian Group. The facility is also a major centre for defence sector.

Metec UK

Metec UK designs, manufactures, installs, and provides onsite services within the offshore oil and gas, offshore renewable, port and harbour, ship build and repair, and petrochemical industries.

The Metec Group has the largest combined foundry capacity within Europe for the production sacrificial anodes and the group boasts galvanic anode weekly casting capacity in excess of 100 tonnes for aluminium and zinc anode production. Metec are supplying cathodic protection sacrificial anodes for the first two phases of Dogger Bank Wind Farm.

You can hear why location was top of the priority list before investment was made in Metec’s facility in South Shields, and how the company feel the North East has the vision to embrace the ‘renewables revolution’.