Massive new arrival is welcomed at Kishorn Port in Wester Ross as Northern Producer floating production facility makes an appearance

AN eye-catching new addition to the marine environment of a Wester Ross community has been welcomed by a local business.

Kishorn Port has marked the arrival of the Northern Producer floating production facility (FPF) to the facility for a period of anchorage.

The Northern Producer was located in the Northern North Sea sector and until its recent disconnection provided the route for oil produced from a number of fields.

The FPF will remain within the port until such time as arrangements are made for the platform’s redeployment or, alternatively, it’s decommissioning.

Director Alasdair Ferguson said: "We’re delighted Northern Offshore has chosen to bring the FPF to nchorage at Kishorn. This is a further endorsement of the services the port offers to the oil and gas sector and builds on a number of oil and gas and decommissioning projects which have used our facilities over the past 18 months."

Kishorn Port Limited is a joint venture between Corpach-based Ferguson Transport and Shipping and Aberdeen-based Leiths (Scotland) Limited.

The original Kishorn Yard was developed as a manufacturing and fabrication yard for oil platforms in he 1970s. The yard was owned by Howard Doris Ltd who operated it from 1975 to 1987. The dry dock was constructed specifically for the fabrication of the Ninian Central platform, a 600,000-onne oncrete structure. In 2019 the port hosted the first major project at Kishorn for nearly 20 years, the obilisation of the Ocean Great White drilling rig.

In May 2020 the MV Kaami cargo vessel was decommissioned within the dry dock with over 99 per cent of the vessel being reused or recycled. Also in 020 the Voyageur Spirit FPSO came to Kishorn for a period of preservation and maintenance, followed by the Banff FPSO which has been anchored within the loch.

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