MAJOR PROJECTS
Jobs – the current total of 300 SeAH employees at the site is expected to rise to 750 by the end of the year.
presence. SeAH Wind chief revenue officer David Jack has been with the project from the start, casting an eye across potential sites and helping bring it to fruition once Tees Valley was chosen.
But after various complications saw Humberside discounted, why select an old steelworks site on the banks of the Tees?
He told This Is Tees Valley:“ Teesside helped build the Empire. It has a huge steel-making history, a number of oil and gas companies, a lot of innovation and two million people within an hour’ s drive. Therefore, when you compare that to other sites that are less populated and have fewer transferable skills, it starts to pull away.
“ We came to Teesside because all the ingredients we needed came together at the same time.
“ We were getting a heavy-duty, deepwater quay, which is vital for us, investment from the local authority, engagement from the Tees Valley Combined Authority, a supportive mayor and government, a market that was buoyant and clients that were desperately looking for new suppliers. So, when we were looking through all these decisions we had to make, Teesside ticked so many boxes.”
The monopiles to be made by SeAH Wind can be up to 15.5m in diameter – twice that
SeAH Group is a family-owned business, and the family decided to invest here in Teesside without any orders.
of the Channel Tunnel – and 120m long, with a maximum weight capability of 4,500 tonnes.
The first ones despatched from Teesside will head to the Ørsted Hornsea 3 wind farm off the Norfolk and Humber coast, which is set to become the world’ s largest offshore wind farm. Those monopiles will be 11m in diameter and each weigh around 2,200 tonnes.
A second order has also been secured for the 2.8-gigawatt RWE Vanguard east and west wind farm projects, meaning work is already secured until early 2028.
Chief operating officer Peter Ivey said:“ SeAH Group is a family-owned business, and the family decided to invest here in Teesside without any orders.
“ They undertook to build a billion-pound factory right here in Teesside. That’ s a huge vote of confidence in the area and the market within the North-East to service offshore wind.
“ This whole area is primed to be a powerhouse for offshore wind. And with SeAH Wind being an anchor tenant here, hopefully other businesses will come alongside as well.”
But even though orders are in for the next three years, SeAH won’ t be resting on its laurels.
David said:“ We’ re blessed enough to have an order book that takes us to the end of 2027, but the nature of the business means we can ' t stand still.
“ We ' re constantly looking for the next project and opportunity. And we have a very healthy tender backlog of well over a billion pounds’ worth of opportunity. I won ' t go into specifics, but it should give people comfort that we are constantly tendering, and it takes us, generally, about two to three years before those projects start manufacturing to secure contracts, so we ' re on the cusp of winning more orders with developers in the UK and Europe.”
In Korean,“ Seah” means to make the world beautiful – and while the huge SeAH Wind factory may not be a conventional beauty, it’ s hoped that by producing its impressive monopiles, it will help generate power for the country, and support jobs in the Tees Valley, for years to come.
David added:“ When you set up a business, it’ s like climbing a mountain. And sometimes, when you’ re climbing that mountain, you can ' t always see the final destination and get to enjoy the view.
“ It ' s only when you get to the top that you can take a moment to realise what you ' ve achieved.
“ We ' re still on that journey. We can see the top but we’ re not there yet. But when we get there, we ' ll take a bit of time to reflect and realise the scale of what we ' ve done – and then we’ ll think,‘ How can we do it better?’“ You can never stop in this industry because the moment you do, someone else will be looking to take your place. So we will always try to move forward.”
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