First Minister Alex Salmond hailed the rapid development of business and skills at Nigg Energy Park yesterday, just nine months after the sale of the largely disused Cromarty Firth site.
Mr Salmond viewed work at the manufacturing and servicing facility, where Global Energy Group, which bought the 238-acre site last October, estimates that up to 2,000 people could be employed by 2015.
The first minister also met trainees at Nigg Skills Academy (NSA), the industry-led training centre which he officially launched in March. Mr Salmond congratulated the first recruits to have secured specialist welders’ accreditation after eight weeks of intensive workshop-focused training.
The NSA was set up, with £915,000 of public funding, in premises provided by Global.
It is expected to launch 290 Modern Apprenticeships in its first year and to provide both the apprenticeships and general training for some 3,000 people by 2015.
Mr Salmond said: “I’m delighted to visit Nigg again, to meet staff and to discuss with (Global Energy chairman) Roy (MacGregor) the rapid progress he has made here and the ambitious plans he has for the future. Workers at Nigg have delivered some of the biggest energy-industry structures ever built and with one of the world’s largest dry docks, this will be a key hub for the renewables revolution taking place offshore in the waters around Europe and beyond.”
NSA training manager Neil Clayton said: “We’ve had more than 3,000 applications for the academy and made a fantastic start.
“With the academy now up and running for more than three months, we are planning a big expansion for the rest of the year with clients already secured from companies in various parts of the Highlands and the north-east.”