Press Releases - ABLE

'DISAPPOINTMENT' OVER SHIPS CONTRACT-BUT APPEAL CONTINUES
30/05/07

The Chairman of Able UK has today announced that the company has renegotiated its contract with the United States Department of Transportation Maritime Administration for the recycling of vessels from the US Reserve Fleet at the company’s TERRC (Teesside Environmental Reclamation and Recycling Centre) facility at Graythorp.

Mr Peter Stephenson says that the company will not receive the nine other vessels scheduled to come to TERRC under the original terms of the contract but will still purchase the two part built ships and recycle the four ships which have been berthed at TERRC since November 2003.

He also revealed that the opportunity to recycle a redundant British Navy vessel had been lost because of the delays in gaining new planning approvals for development of TERRC—but stressed that the company remained committed to developing a world-class ship recycling facility and has lodged its appeal against Hartlepool Borough Council’s refusal of its plans to upgrade the facility and develop facilities for the construction of wind generation equipment. The appeal is expected to commence in September 2007 and is likely to take five weeks.

Said Mr Stephenson “Whilst we are pleased that we have been able to agree with United States Department of Transportation Maritime Administration that our contract for the recycling of the four vessels currently berthed at TERRC continues, it is disappointing that, after all the efforts of so many people, the opportunity to bring the additional work, which would have been generated through the other nine vessels, has been lost due to the delay.

“In addition the delay resulting from the decisions of Hartlepool Council’s planning committee last October means that we lost the opportunity to recycle the Royal Navy vessel HMS Intrepid—we understand that this work is likely to go to Merseyside.

“As we made clear at the time of the Planning Committee’s decisions we believe that it is of benefit to Hartlepool, the wider Teesside area—and indeed the whole of the UK—that we do not miss out on the opportunity to establish our area as a centre of excellence for both marine recycling technology and the development of wind power electric generation.

“We now understand that our appeal against the Planning Committee’s decisions will be considered in September and we are hopeful that we will have the appropriate planning permissions in place by the end of the year, to enable the start of ship recycling operations Early in 2008”.

<< back