A new £2.5million centre of excellence for testing emerging technologies in the subsea sector is to be established with support from Scottish Enterprise.
Balmoral Offshore Engineering, based in Aberdeen, is creating a new open access hyperbaric pressure testing facility for the oil and gas supply chain, and specifically for the subsea sector.
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Scottish Enterprise is supporting the project with a £1m research and development grant to the company, which will invest £1.5m in the project. The centre will be available for large companies and SMEs to use.
The project will more than double the capacity of large-scale open access pressure testing vessels from two vessels to five in Scotland.
The project will create Scotland’s first fully open access ultra-deep water hyperbaric test facility which will enable testing for products that are to be exported to international markets.
Jim Milne CBE, Chairman and Managing Director, Balmoral Group, said: “We are delighted to have secured this investment from Scottish Enterprise, an organisation we have been collaborating successfully with for many years.
“The establishment of Europe’s leading hyperbaric test centre in Aberdeen further strengthens the city’s position as a centre of excellence for the global subsea industry while also opening up opportunities to work with the renewables and defence sectors.
“With the offshore industry demanding ever-increasing product testing, and as a company with innovation at its core, we are pleased to offer additional capacity for ‘open access’ third party testing. As well as servicing our customers we particularly look forward to supporting Scotland’s academic institutions with their R&D programmes.
“The Balmoral Subsea Test Centre currently employs 12 people and in addition to safeguarding those positions there is a high probability of adding to this number in the short to medium term.”
