After having to close its doors in August, Harland and Wolff, the shipyard that built the Titanic over a hundred years ago, is making a new start now that is has been bought by British energy company Infrastrata. The company paid about 6.8 million euros for the shipyard located in Belfast.

Over the summer, the shipyard’s Norwegian parent company Dolphin Drilling collapsed resulting in the shipyard being liquidated. 130 people were employed by the shipyard at the time. The 79 employees that did not opt for voluntary redundancy earlier in the year are now retained by Infrastrata.

The company plans to significantly increase the size of the workforce, however, by several hundred over the next five years as it progresses the development of its infrastructure projects. Most important project of the company is the Islandmagee underground gas storage plant off the coast of Country Antrim and an FSRU (floating storage and re-gasification unit) project.

In a statement, Infrastrata has said that buying the shipyard will cut cost of work by up to fifteen per cent and construction timelines are expected to be reduced by three to five months. This is because the yard will be used to build pipework and modules rather than buying parts abroad and building them on site. The resulting savings are said to be higher than the acquisition price of the yard. In addition, the company expects the in-house fabrication capabilities to enhance the economics of future projects.

Picture: Harland & Wolff Shipyard (by Wilson Adams/Harland & Wolff Shipyard/CC BY-SA 2.0).

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