Norway’s NorSea Group said yesterday a deal struck with Scrabster Harbour Trust (SHT) would lead to “major” investment and jobs in Caithness.
NorSea, based at Tanager, near Stavanger, aims to develop Scotland’s most northerly mainland port as a new supply base serving the buoyant oil and gas industry.
In particular, the facility is expected to benefit from increasing activity west of Shetland.
NorSea’s international and project operations director, Knut Johannesen, was unable to put figures to either the scale of likely investment or job-creation potential.
But NorSea’s nine supply bases in Norway each host between 40 and 60 companies and the smallest, in the far north of the country, employs about 30 people directly and another 30 indirectly.
Mr Johannesen said the northerly “Polarbase”, near Hammerfest, had many parallels with Scrabster because of its extremely remote location.
It was too early to say how many companies could be attracted to the Scottish port, he said, adding: “This is not going to happen tomorrow. It’s a long-term project.”
NorSea employs about 700 people and turns over about £278million a year.
Its Norwegian bases provide a wide range of services from warehouse, workshops and storage facilities to engineering, construction, lifting equipment, inspections, machining and waste handling.
It is expected the Scrabster site, which has benefited from investment worth more than £35million since 2001, will develop along similar lines.
NorSea chief executive John Stangeland said: “We are very excited about co-operating with Scrabster Harbour Trust to develop business for the strategically-important port of Scrabster.
“The vision and commitment of the trust have been fundamental in our decision to establish NorSea Group there.
“We are committed to involving the local community in all aspects of our phased development, which will bring significant investment and job opportunities.”
SHT chairman William Calder said: “We are delighted that NorSea has chosen to establish itself at Scrabster, especially at this time of redevelopment of the harbour to respond to new business demands.
“Scrabster is ideally situated to support the major oil and gas developments emerging west of Shetland.”
Scrabster is currently undergoing redevelopment, the first phase of which has created a new deepwater quay to complement the existing facilities.
John Thurso, MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, said: “This major venture will boost the development of Scrabster harbour, create valuable jobs in the local community and signals that Scrabster intends to be a major player in the energy industry, both renewable and oil and gas.”