Babcock International Group contract awarded to Granada

Granada Material Handling have been awarded a fourth contract for the Beatrice Offshore Windfarm (BOWL) project, this latest one to design, manufacture, deliver and commission two davit crane units for Babcock International Group.

Each of Granada’s Python crane units has been designed specifically for Beatrice, and Granada will fit one crane to each of the two Offshore Transformer Modules (OTMs) being supplied by Babcock.

The Granada Python crane units for this contract each measure approximately 4 metres in height, 4.5 metres in radius, and weigh 2000kgs. Their maximum lifting capacity of 1600kgs is needed to hoist the heavier serviceable components from the supply vessel to the laydown area on the OTM foundation platform. Their design, unique to Granada, emphasises the health and safety requirements and the needs of the operator in a challenging marine environment.

The 84 turbine, £2.6bn BOWL project is being built by owners SSE, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Red Rock Power Ltd, after reaching Financial Close in May last year, and it will be one of the largest private investments ever made in Scottish infrastructure. Commenting on Granada’s fourth contract for Beatrice, Mark Sidwell, director at Granada, said,
“As with our previous contract awards for BOWL, this is not only great news for the Renewables team at Granada but also for our UK supply chain. We are already looking to place orders and to sub-contract specialist areas of work to other UK businesses.”

Granada will deliver the davit crane units over a 6-month period.