Breezy forecast for offshore wind


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Is there a long-term future for Britain's offshore oil industry? The answer is blowing in the wind - at least if energy explorer Ramco is to be believed.

The oil and gas firm is planning to sell off its hydrocarbon business and focus solely on the nascent offshore wind industry, renaming itself SeaEnergy.

Unprofitable Ramco has secured £7.5m of backing from investors Lanstead, which will become a 22pc shareholder in the group.


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Unexplored territory: Ramco will concentrate on the new offshore wind industry


Founder and executive chairman Stephen Remp claimed there are good opportunities across British industry in wind turbines - even though most of the manufacturing is located in countries such as Germany, Denmark and China.

In particular, yards that used to specialise in building North Sea oil platforms could be started up again, focusing on the infrastructure that supports giant offshore turbines. He pointed to Burntisland Fabrications in Fife, which was involved in the Beatrice wind farm demonstration project.

"There is the opportunity to revisit these mothballed sites," said Remp. "North Sea oil is in its mature phase, but all of a sudden you have a new industry."

In the 1990s Ramco grew rapidly thanks to its Caspian Sea oil interests, and more recently it has been trying to grab a toehold in the Iraqi industry.

But the firm's shares are just a fraction of levels at the turn of the decade. Ramco recorded a pretax loss of £2.5m in the half year ended June 30, compared with a loss of £1.2m in the same period last year. The stock fell 1.5p to 52.5p.

Ramco now wants to capitalise on the government incentives being offered to firms specialising in clean energy. The Aberdeen firm has already secured 456megawatts of offshore wind farm acreage alongside utility partners.

Offshore farms produce more reliable power because the wind is less intermittent, and they allow firms to avoid getting entangled in the country's labyrinthine planning regulations.

But they are notoriously expensive, and large firms including BP and Royal Dutch Shell have pulled out of the sector.

"The offshore wind opportunity is truly enormous, with over £130bn of investment envisaged over the next 11 years through the Scottish and UK Offshore Rounds," said Remp.

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