Harland & Wolff awarded new £8.5m ship-building contract

Harland & Wolff has been awarded a contract worth £8.5 million with Cory for the fabrication of eleven barges. The barges will be used by Cory to transport London’s recyclable and non-recyclable waste on the River Thames.

The programme schedule allows for four barges to be built in tandem, with the entire build programme ending around mid-2023. Fully fabricated barges will be sequentially delivered to Cory on the River Thames.

Speaking on the new deal, Harland & Wolff, Group CEO John Wood, commented:

“With this material contract, we shall be opening up our vast undercover fabrication halls in Belfast and making optimal use of our new robotic welding panel line.

“This contract gives us the opportunity to optimise our production flows in readiness for other fabrication programmes in our pipeline and it demonstrates the variety of fabrication work that our facilities are ideally placed to execute upon.

“I am delighted to have secured this contract with our new client, Cory Group, and look forward to working very closely with them to deliver on their new barge investment programme going forward.”

It comes as Harland & Wolff also acquired the former HMS Atherstone from the Ministry of Defence (MOD).

The former HMS Atherstone is a mine hunting class vessel that is no longer in Service. Harland & Wolff has acquired this vessel with a view to refurbishing it for non-military uses, discussions for which have already commenced with interested parties.