In June 2008, Skene Group Concrete Products won the order for the supply of 27 000m³ of ready mixed concrete to BAM Nuttall Ltd for the Infrastructure Upgrade contract at Rosyth Dockyard. This is arguably the largest and most prestigious contract undertaken by Skene and with the project approaching the half way stage, Skene Group have succeeded in building a strong relationship with BAM Nuttall which has enabled the supply of a range of high specification concrete mixes in pours sizes up to 450m³.

 

Rosyth Dockyard has been through difficult times over the past decade. The Babcock-owned yard on the north bank of the Firth of Forth has suffered from tightening government purse strings — but a Royal Navy contract to build two huge aircraft carriers by 2016 has transformed its prospects for the next few years.

It will also transform the historic Number 1 Dock, because current capacity is insufficient for the two 65,000-tonne 284m-long, 74m-wide, 56m-high carriers — to be named HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

Originally built at the beginning of the 20th century, the dock was extended in the 1960s and is long enough to accommodate the vessels, but advances in naval architecture mean that the dock's cross-section is unsuitable for modern warship building. And contractor BAM Nuttall has won an infrastructure upgrade contract worth £35M to reconfigure the dock and to carry out work on the adjacent non-tidal basin by October 2010.

As well as changing the cross-section of the dock, the gated dock entrance is also being widened to accommodate the ships, as is the sliding gate that separates the non-tidal main basin from the Firth of Forth. The team will also install the 120m-span, 1,000-tonne capacity Goliath gantry crane that will straddle the dock to allow shipwrights to manoeuvre the prefabricated sections of each aircraft carrier into position. Shipyards around the country are building different sections of the carriers, these will then be welded together at Rosyth.

Skene Group are supplying the ready mixed concrete to the contract from their plants at Crossgates and Glenrothes using in house aggregates supplied from their local quarries, so ensuring maximum benefit from this significant contract is held within the local economy.