Blackhill Engineering is fabricating large steel structures for the Navy’s new Thanckes Oil Fuel Depot Loading Facility Refuelling Jetty.
This is Blackhills’s first contract for VolkerStevin which is responsible for the £43m Defence Infrastructure Organisation project to modernise refuelling facilities for Royal Navy warships and Royal Fleet Auxiliary.
Blackhill Engineering has a double overhead gantry crane lifting capability of 40 tonnes and 20 tonnes and this tandem lift capability allows safe loading of structures up to 25m long. Blackhill fabricated 15 sacrificial casings measuring up to 18m long with a diameter up to 2.3m and weighing up to 23 tonnes each, which will be embedded into the rock strata of the River Tamar to form stanchions supporting the jetty head structure. Blackhill is also fabricating dolphin tops, rails, frames and access equipment.
Joe Wilcox, General Manager, Blackhill Engineering, said, “Being engaged by VolkerStevin on this major project is an achievement for our highly skilled and flexible workforce. Our BS EN 1090 Structural Steel and Aluminium capabilities project us ahead of our competition regionally, and our embrace of a Nuclear Safety Culture reflects the pride we take in our workmanship”.
The contract’s initial Scope of Works has expanded with Blackhill building 6m wide platform structures. The feasibility of assembling the completed platforms on its Exeter site and the logistics of transporting the finished units to the customer are being assessed as they would require an escorted convoy of vehicles.