LONDON: Britain wants offshore wind farms to provide one third of the country’s electricity by 2030, the government announced Thursday, at a time when its nuclear energy ambitions are stumbling.
Working with the private sector to take advantage of the island nation’s surrounding waters to power homes and businesses with increasing amounts of renewable energy, the government said the Offshore Wind Sector Deal will slash the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels.
Offshore wind currently provides about seven percent of British electricity.
The new initiative “will drive a surge in the clean, green offshore wind revolution ... bringing investment into coastal communities and ensuring we maintain our position as global leaders in this growing sector,” Claire Perry, Britain’s energy and clean growth minister, said in a statement.
“By 2030 a third of our electricity will come from offshore wind, generating thousands of high-quality jobs across the UK,” she added.
The government said that the deal “will mean for the first time in UK history there will be more electricity from renewables than fossil fuels, with 70 percent of British electricity predicted to be from low carbon sources by 2030.”
Additionally, it “will look to seize on the opportunities presented by the UK’s 7,000 miles of coastline, as the industry continues to be a coastal catalyst for many of the UK’s former fishing villages and ports,” the government statement said.
Thursday’s announcement came after Japanese giant Hitachi in January froze construction of a nuclear power station in Wales owing to financing difficulties, dealing a major blow to Britain’s low-carbon energy strategy.
Britain has put nuclear power also at the heart of its low-carbon energy policy, in contrast to Europe’s biggest economy Germany, which is phasing it out in the wake of Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
UK targets surge in offshore wind power
UK targets surge in offshore wind power
- Offshore wind currently provides about seven percent of British electricity
- Britain has put nuclear power also at the heart of its low-carbon energy policy
Italy’s Saipem wins $3.1bn offshore contract for Qatar’s North Field project
RIYADH: Italy’s Saipem has secured an offshore engineering, procurement, construction and installation contract worth about $3.1 billion for its share of a major gas project in Qatar.
The contract, awarded by QatarEnergy LNG, covers the COMP5 package of the North Field Production Sustainability Offshore Compression Complexes project. The total value of the award is approximately $4 billion, Saipem said in a statement.
The award forms part of QatarEnergy LNG’s strategy to maintain and increase production capacity at the North Field, the world’s largest non-associated natural gas field, located off the northeastern coast of Qatar.
The project scope includes the “engineering, procurement, fabrication and installation of two compression complexes, each including a compression platform, a living quarter platform, a flare platform supporting the gas combustion system, and the related interconnecting bridges.”
Each complex will have a total weight of about 68,000 tonnes.
The contract has a total duration of approximately 5 years. Saipem said offshore installation operations will be carried out by its De He construction vessel in 2029 and 2030.
The new contract follows the EPCI COMP2 and COMP3 packages, which were awarded to Saipem in October 2022 and September 2024, respectively, and are currently under execution.
“The award of the COMP5 package consolidates Saipem’s collaboration with QatarEnergy LNG and reinforces the company’s presence in Qatar as a partner for the execution of complex large-scale projects,” the company said.
QatarEnergy CEO Saad Al-Kaabi said last month that the broader North Field expansion project remains on track to produce its first liquefied natural gas in the second half of 2026, Reuters reported.
The wider North Field project involves the construction of six gas trains to cool natural gas into liquefied natural gas for export by ship.
Saipem, which is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, operates as a “One Company” organized into several business lines, including asset-based services, drilling, energy carriers, offshore wind, and sustainable infrastructures.
The company owns five fabrication yards, along with a fleet of 17 construction vessels and 12 drilling rigs.
