{"id":443538,"date":"2026-06-01T21:57:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T11:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldcargonews.com\/?p=103703"},"modified":"2026-06-01T21:57:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T11:57:15","slug":"maraen-awards-quay-contract-at-port-of-nigg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=443538","title":{"rendered":"Maraen awards quay contract at Port of Nigg"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Port of Nigg in northern Scotland is set for a major expansion of its marine infrastructure after owner Maraen awarded the contract for a new heavy-duty quay to construction specialist McLaughlin & Harvey.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The Eastern Inner Dock Quay (EIDQ) project represents an investment of more than GB\u00a330m and will add approximately 16,000 sq m of new quayside space with roll-on\/roll-off capability. Supported by a \u00a310m grant from the Scottish government\u2019s Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the development forms part of Scotland\u2019s wider strategy to strengthen domestic offshore wind supply chains and attract energy-sector investment.<\/p>\n

Construction preparations have commenced following the award of the contract to McLaughlin & Harvey, a privately owned UK and Irish construction and civil engineering group with more than 170 years of experience. The company has previously worked at Nigg, delivering the reconstruction of the South Quay between 2014 and 2015, including a 370m combi-pile quay wall and a 130m by 40m West Finger Quay. \u201cWe\u2019re pleased to be returning to the Port of Nigg, enhancing port capacity and operational capability by creating a new quay for the energy sector,\u201d said Seamus Devlin, Managing Director at McLaughlin & Harvey. \u201cThis project draws on our experience of delivering complex marine projects in port infrastructure across the UK and Ireland.\u201d The EIDQ will provide additional deep-water berth capacity and new Ro-Ro capability, enabling the port to accommodate a broader range of project cargoes and vessel operations. Maraen said the development will increase operational flexibility across the site and improve its ability to support simultaneous large-scale energy projects.<\/p>\n

Export gateway for HVDC cables<\/h2>\n

A key purpose of the new quay will be to support exports from an adjacent Sumitomo Electric high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable manufacturing facility, currently one of the most significant industrial investments associated with the UK offshore wind sector. The quay will provide a dedicated load-out facility, creating a direct link between manufacturing operations and marine transport. Demand for HVDC transmission systems is expected to increase significantly as larger offshore wind projects are developed further from shore and require high-capacity grid connections. By integrating manufacturing and port operations within a single location, Nigg is positioning itself as an important logistics node within the emerging North Sea offshore wind supply chain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Eastern Inner Dock Quay is a significant project for Maraen Port of Nigg,\u201d said Rory Gunn, Facilities Director at Maraen Port of Nigg. \u201cThis investment not only provides a dedicated load-out quay for cables from the new Sumitomo factory. Its construction also increases the overall quayside capacity of our port. The new quay will provide our current and future customers with critical load-in and load-out options and greatly increases our deep-water quay availability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expanding Scotland\u2019s offshore wind infrastructure<\/h2>\n

Located on the Cromarty Firth, on the east coast in the Scottish Highlands, the Port of Nigg has transformed from an oil and gas support base into one of the UK’s principal energy and renewables ports. The facility offers more than 1,200m of quayside, water depths of up to 12m below chart datum, ground load-bearing capacity of 50 tonnes per sq m, and approximately 380,000 sq m of laydown space. It also benefits from \u201cGreen Freeport\u201d and customs site status.<\/p>\n

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Operations at Nigg (M&M)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The port has played a prominent role in offshore wind development, supporting projects representing more than 4GW of installed capacity. The EIDQ project is being delivered against a backdrop of growing competition among European ports to secure manufacturing, assembly and logistics activity associated with the next generation of offshore wind farms. The development is echoed elsewhere on the East Coast of Scotland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Continuity from oil and gas<\/h2>\n

The development is supported through Scottish Government-backed investment in offshore wind infrastructure. Highlands and Islands Enterprise contributed \u00a310m towards the project as part of a wider commitment by the Scottish Government to invest up to \u00a3500m over five years to strengthen the nation’s offshore wind supply chain and increase domestic economic benefit from future renewable energy projects.<\/p>\n

Maraen was formed in 2025 following the acquisition of Port of Nigg<\/a>, then owned by Global Energy Group and Global Energy Services, by Mitsui & Co. Europe and Mitsui OSK Lines. The Japanese partners now own the business through a 51:49 joint venture and have indicated their intention to support long-term growth in the international energy market. \u201cWe’re pleased to be working again with McLaughlin & Harvey, who know this site well and understand what it takes to successfully deliver projects here to the high quality and safety standards we demand,\u201d concluded Rory Gunn. \u201cTheir work on the South Quay transformed the capabilities at the Port of Nigg<\/a> and enabled us to attract large Energy sector project which could previously not be accommodated at our site.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Port of Nigg in northern Scotland is set for a major expansion of its marine infrastructure after owner Maraen awarded the contract for a new heavy-duty quay to construction specialist McLaughlin & Harvey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14320,20340,20343,2305,20345,20346,19304,17633,12339,16589,17807,1781,85],"tags":[12159],"class_list":["post-443538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-engineering","category-eastern-inner-dock-quay","category-eidq","category-environment","category-hvdc","category-maraen","category-nigg","category-port-of-nigg","category-ports-terminals","category-project-cargo-heavy-lift","category-ro-ro-equipment","category-scotland","category-uk","tag-world-cargo-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=443538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":443543,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443538\/revisions\/443543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=443538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=443538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=443538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}