THE Prime Minister has promised to support manufacturing as he congratulated a Fife firm which is taking on 350 workers after winning two massive contracts.
• BiFab wins contract to build major components of new platform
• Work will involve sites in Fife and Isle of Lewis
• David Cameron in visit to Scotland
David Cameron visited Burntisland Fabrication (BiFab) just after bosses there announced new contracts worth £140 million involving the design, procurement and construction of major components for a new oil platform.
He told workers at the firm that, in the past, Britain’s economy was “too reliant on financial services and banking”.
Mr Cameron stressed the importance of “high-quality manufacturing” and said that the Government will “try and do our bit” to help manufacturing.
The new work at BiFab, for Premier Oil’s Solan development near Shetland, means the workforce will have doubled in size by December. It also allows the firm to continue the apprenticeship programme it began five years ago.
The contracts are expected to be completed by April 2014 and will involve BiFab’s sites in Methil and Burntisland in Fife and Arnish on Lewis.
Mr Cameron met bosses and apprentices as he toured BiFab’s site in Buckhaven in Fife, a visit he described as a “good intermission” between taking the French president to the Olympic handball and taking the Russian president to watch judo at the Games on Thursday.
BiFab works with the oil and gas sector and the renewable energy sector. The Prime Minister hailed the company as a “great British business that is doing fantastic things”.
He said: “Our economy had become far too reliant on financial services and banking, rather than actually making things. And here what you’re going to be doing over these coming years, if everything goes well in the oil sector and the renewables sector, is really important, high-quality manufacturing, and I think that’s something to celebrate and something to stand up for.
“It is absolutely vital we have got diverse supplies of energy, that we fully exploit the North Sea and the oil and gas that is available but also we make the most of the renewable energies of the future, and you’re doing both those things right here at BiFab.”
The company was praised for providing “good, well-paid jobs for people who live in this area and also for future generations”, describing the plan to take on 15 apprentices a year for the coming years as “really impressive”.
He added: “I can commit that we will try and do our bit to help, whether that’s helping with the oil offshore allowances we put in the last budget; whether its supporting apprenticeships, I think there were 450,000 apprentices started last year which was a record year; or anything else we can do to encourage manufacturing and local content as you’re demonstrating here.
“So from me as Prime Minister just a very big congratulations to BiFab, to Premier Oil, but above all to the workforce here who have made this possible. It’s great news that you’re going to be building this stuff here in Scotland rather than having it imported from elsewhere.”