£40+ million project to transform port and dry dock

Near the Isle of Skye, about 40 miles northwest of Ben Nevis, the UK’s tallest mountain, Kishorn Port and Dry Dock is famous for building the 600,000-tonne Ninian Central Platform, which is one of the largest structures ever to have been moved by humans across the face of the Earth.

On completion in the 1970s, the gravity base structure was floated out and towed to the Ninian oil field in the North Sea, where the steel topside was installed – and the project was hailed as a major feat of engineering, playing a key role in the UK’s North Sea oil industry.

Now Kishorn Port is being developed to accommodate another kind of energy – this time, wind.

The port has many natural advantages, not least the on-site quarry, which will provide raw materials for manufacturing concrete floating offshore wind substructures, a spokesperson from the port said.

Land will be reclaimed and an existing dry dock area enlarged to allow floating offshore and decommissioning work to be carried out.

The principal contractor for the project is RJ McLeod, which was founded by Roderick John Macleod in 1951.

”Kishorn Port and Dry Dock has been identified in Scottish Enterprise’s National Renewables Infrastructure Plan as a potential manufacturing and distribution hub for the offshore renewables industry,” a statement said.

The port is a deep-water port, with berthing for the larger vessels and good access to road and rail, with secure facilities for containers and work boats, it says.

£24 million of the funding required for the port works has vome from the government office Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Construction is expected to take around 18 months, and ultimately the port could offer 1,500 jobs, it says.