Prince Charles opens Balmoral’s subsea test facility in Aberdeen

Balmoral Offshore Engineering (BOE), an Aberdeen-based provider of deepwater buoyancy, insulation, and elastomer products, has opened its new subsea test facility in Aberdeen.

BOE said on Wednesday that the facility was opened by Prince Charles, the Duke of Rothesay, on October 3, 2018.

The ceremony was attended by more than 100 guests to celebrate the conclusion of its two-year £20 million ($26 million) investment project.

Since January 2016, the new building has been taking shape at Balmoral headquarters and now covers the area of “more than six tennis courts” rising to 18 meters in height with a craneage capacity of up to 40 tonnes.

The company also had to blast through some 15 meters of granite sub-strata to accommodate the new underground pressure test vessels.

Jim Milne, chairman and managing director of Balmoral, said: “I am immensely proud of the facility and am hugely grateful to my colleagues and subcontractors who have worked extremely hard to create this facility in what is our 38th year of operations.

“Balmoral products, all of which are designed, manufactured and tested here in Aberdeen, can be found on every significant deepwater project around the world – from the Gulf of Mexico to South America, West Africa and, closer to home, West of Shetland, and the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.

“Relying on third-party test houses would put us in a very uncompetitive situation, that’s why we carry out as many processes as we can in-house – from product concept to material development, testing and realization. That’s what separates us from the rest of the market.”

According to the company, the new facility offers a wide range of procedures including hydrostatic, mechanical, and laboratory trials providing the industry with a comprehensive resource for all types of subsea equipment testing.

New and upgraded vessels simulate conditions to water depths equivalent of 7,000 meters of seawater, or 23,100 feet of seawater. Most of the vessels are installed underground meaning access at ground level making handling much easier and safer.

Bespoke software has been created to allow full test traceability and real-time observation from anywhere in the world.

Predominantly used for in-house testing and development work, the center is also available to customers spanning the energy, defense, oceanographic, and academic sectors.

It is worth reminding that Scottish Enterprise supported creating a new hyperbaric pressure testing facility in BOE’s subsea test facility with a £1 million ($1.3 million) research and development grant to the company in May 2017.