Wireline Issue 48 - Summer 2020

W hen the dry dock at Kishorn Port was opened to receive a cargo ship in May this year, it represented more than just another routine maritime project. The MV Kaami, which had run aground on rocks between the isles of Skye and Lewis, was taken to Kishorn on Scotland’s north west coast for dismantling after being deemed by experts to be beyond repair. The event, however, had a much wider significance: it was the first time in more than 25 years that the dry dock facility had been fully opened to the sea to accept a vessel. And it marked a significant step forward for the port as it pursues a three-pronged strategy to capitalise on modern-day opportunities — and thereby revive the fortunes of a sleeping giant. Yard lessons The port, near Lochcarron in Wester Ross, is indelibly linked with the story of the early years of the UK oil ans gas industry — most famously, of course, as the site where the massive Ninian Central platform was constructed in the mid to late 1970s. The Kishorn yard was originally developed as a manufacturing and fabrication facility for platforms and at its peak employed more than 3,000 people. The port has continued to provide conventional marine services to sectors such as aquaculture, forestry and construction through the intervening years, although the dry dock was last operational in the early 1990s when the caissons that support the Skye Bridge were made there. In recent years however, a major programme of investment has fully restored the dock — one of the biggest facilities of its kind in Europe — to operational use, and in the process re- energised its ambitions for growth. At the centre of the initiative is a 50/50 joint venture set up in 2008 by businesses with distinctive but complementary areas of focus at the site: Aberdeen- based Leiths (Scotland) Ltd, which operates the quarrying, concrete and construction materials business at Kishorn, and Fort William-based Ferguson Transport, which runs the wider port facilities. “The two businesses came together at the time and looked at the latent opportunity presented by the disused dock, not least in terms of the fabrication of concrete structures,” says Colin Ortlepp, a director with Kishorn Port Ltd (KPL). “We recognised that we could work together to realise the dock’s potential, capitalising on our respective capabilities and resources to make it an asset once again.” Since then, the site has witnessed significant investment by the joint venture partners as well as by a host of other organisations keen to capitalise on the economic development opportunities. With that momentum, the site has undergone real transformation over the past ten years.

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