Q and A with David Jack of SeAH wind

If you’ve been down to the River Tees, you may have got a big surprise.

And when we say big, we really mean it.

The world’s largest bespoke XXXL monopile manufacturing facility is being built at the Teesworks site by SeAH Wind, which was established in 2021 by South Korean company SeAH Steel Holdings Corporation.

Work on the multi-million pound facility began in 2022 and when production starts next year, the factory will be manufacturing monopiles for offshore wind farms such as Hornsea Three, Norfolk Vanguard West and Norfolk Vanguard East – and supporting the transition into cleaner renewable energy.

The scale of the project, on the South Bank of the River Tees, is staggering. Once fully completed, the main building will span 40m in height, 810m in length and 200m in width, and will have the capability to manufacture monopiles up to 15.5m in outside diameter, 120m in length, and 3500 metric tons.

We spoke to David Jack, Commercial Director at SeAH Wind, about the project’s birth, its progression and its impact on the Teesside community.

What were the challenges in finding a suitable location for the factory?

One of the things that always stood out in offshore wind to us was scale. What does that translate to in our type of business? It translates to the need for a deepwater quay that can bring in installation vessels – and not just today’s vessels, but future generations of vessels too – uninterrupted. And there is also a need to have a manufacturing hinterland sitting behind it.

The location also needed to have the right infrastructure. There aren’t a lot of places on the East Coast of the UK that either have a deep river or sit on a port that has access to deep water, and also have space for further development.

So there was a need to find somewhere new, or to find someone who wanted to create a new space for the offshore wind industry at a deep water port.

We also needed a location where we could draw on a local workforce with transferable skills, and who could easily come into work on a daily basis – rather than somewhere three hours away from the nearest town or city.

We were also making this decision during the COVID-19 pandemic, then we had the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and high inflation.

So all in all, there were some huge challenges for us.

However, Teesworks had all of the ingredients for success. It has the infrastructure in place, the people and the training provision.

Given the scale of the undertaking – and the sheer size of the SeAH Wind facility – have you had any ‘pinch yourself’ moments during the project?

The project has seen a number of milestones. We certainly pinched ourselves when we first came to the site, and we saw the sheer vastness of it! I think what really caught our eye was when we started to put the steel frame up and we could see the actual scale of the building, which was rising up to 40 metres tall.

I visit the site regularly and every week it changes. When you’re inside the factory, you don’t understand the scale of it. You need to step back and look at it from outside. It just blows my mind how big the factory is!

Also, being granted planning permission was obviously a really important moment for us. It showed that Tees Valley Combined Authority and public entities were able to come together and recognise the value that SeAH Wind was going to bring to the region. They moved very quickly – the initial planning process only took around 12 weeks. This demonstrated that UK PLC was open for business and it was an indicator that we had made the right decision.

British Steel and Severfield are working with SeAH Wind to support the facility: British Steel is supplying more than 30,000 tons of steel from its beam mill in Lackenby on Teesside to Severfield, which is handling the steel fabrication. Tell us about this relationship…

When we started building the facility, we were building the largest single shed in Europe, so we needed to place a contract with a company which had experience and was able to deliver on our tight timelines as well. Severfield is based in Thirsk, which is only around 30 miles from the SeAH Wind facility. It is the best of the best in the UK and just happened to be local. So that was a win, win!

We felt it was important to the project that steel could be delivered locally too. Seventy-eight per cent of the steel being used in the construction of the facility is from the British Steel mill at Lackenby.

British Steel and Severfield are world class manufacturers and fabricators. Why wouldn’t we want to put the world’s biggest monopile factory with the best steel mills and the best fabricators in the UK and Europe? It made perfect sense to work with them.

Hartlepool College, Middlesbrough College and Stockton-on-Tees-based Nordic are supporting SeAH Wind in delivering apprenticeship programmes and training. Why is it important for you to develop local talent?

While we recognised that there are a lot of skilled workers in the Teesside area, we also recognised that we would be competing for talent with other companies. Defence contracts for submarines and frigates, the building of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power stations and HS2 are all attracting a lot of talent.

We realised we could provide opportunities and tap into people who wanted to stay on Teesside or who wanted to come back to the area, whilst also developing our own apprentices.

It’s not just about building a factory and creating jobs. It’s about creating generational opportunities. The plan is to have multiple generations of people from the same families working in our facility over the next few decades.

What impact will SeAH Wind have on Teesside and the wider North East?

Firstly, we have put our money where our mouth is.

We have spent £450 million with contractors to date and that figure is set to increase. More than 45 of our main contractors are local companies and more than 200 local subcontractors support the facility.

We currently have 214 members of staff and nearly 80 per cent of them are from Teesside, and nearly 90 per cent are based in North East England.

Secondly, we are the first anchor tenant on Teesworks, and we’re hoping that will create a level of gravitational pull that shows that companies can come from outside of the UK and invest in the UK and in Teesside. So that will have a major impact: the whole area will financially benefit from Teesworks and its Freeport status, and its ability to attract companies like SeAH Wind to the region.

If you work in offshore wind, as a foreign company and as an inward investor, come to Teesside: it is a premium destination! If we can make it a success, other people will surely follow us.

Lastly, we are providing people with a long-term future. We used to build ships on the east coast of the UK. The North East was pivotal in the industrial revolution. But we lost a lot of the skills associated with that. The ability to bring steel manufacturing back to this area is therefore something that gives us a real sense of pride.

For more information on SeAH Wind, visit seahwind.com.