Airborne has announced the choice for the sea harbour of IJmuiden, the Netherlands, as location for its new design and manufacturing plant for Airborne Composite Tubulars. A brand new facility will be build, directly next to the quay of the harbour to allow for directly offloading to offshore sea vessels.
The facility will house the full-scale production lines for the thermoplastic composite pipe systems. Airborne has developed this unique technology over the last decade, and is now ready for full commercialisation. These pipes can for example be used offshore for deepsea operations, up to 3 km water depth. The site will provide work to 150 employees, and the total investment amounts to 20 million Euro.
Construction of the facility will start in a few weeks, and is scheduled to be finished before the end of the year. The production facility will be operational the first quarter of 2012. The production line that is currently based in Ypenburg will also move to this new site in IJmuiden.
The local province of North-Holland, the city of Velsen and the Zeehaven IJmuiden NV are very excited that Airborne has chosen this site for its expansion, and regard it as an important impulse to the local economy and to the strengthening of the offshore cluster already present.
[mappress] Source: Airborne, June 23, 2011;