South Bank Quay: GRAHAM makes history at Teesside Freeport

GRAHAM has delivered ‘one of the largest concrete pours in Teesside’s history’ as part of a major offshore wind development. 

South Bank Quay is a major platform extension at Teesside Freeport, which will serve South Korean steel manufacturer, SeAH Wind’s, £450 million offshore turbine factory. 

The heavy-lift quay, on River Tees, was started in 2021, weighs approximately 150,000 tonnes and stretches 1.2 km in length. It was initially valued at £96 million. 

While SeAH Wind’s new monopile facility, approved last year, is thought to be the largest of its kind in the world, occupying a 90-acre site and spanning 1.13 million sq ft. 

The factory alone is projected to create 1,500 supply chain and construction jobs. 

GRAHAM has partnered with ready-mix concrete supplier, Ready Mix Tees Valley, in pouring around 1,200 cubic metres of concrete a day, in delivery of a 400m section of the new quay, according to Teesside Live. 

The firm was appointed to the scheme by Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, in 2021. 

Initial works included ripping up dilapidated concrete and wooden jetties of the former Heavy Fuel Oil Farm and Tarmac, as well as excavating two million tonnes of earth to create a deep-water berth, on behalf of the South Tees Development Corporation (STDC).   

A 15-acre hardstanding and logistical space was also part of initial preparations by GRAHAM, which saw 300 6ft-wide, 30-metre-long tubular piles driven into the riverbank. 

Last year, GRAHAM brought in Middlesbrough firm ZTL Contracting – part of the Applebridge Group – to re-engineer around 150,000 tonnes of earthwork materials for reuse, diverting it from landfill. This was done with a combination of lime and cement. 

Also in 2022, Bauer Technologies, a subsidiary of the BAUER Group, was brought in by GRAHAM to install tubular steel combi wall king piles for the new quay.   

Ready Mix managing director, Jim Greenwood, told local news outlets he is ‘confident the concrete pour for the quay was one of the biggest ever for Teesside’. He added family who had also built the Redcar Bulk Terminal and Teesport ‘never did more than 400 cubic metres a day’. 

It is understood 17 wagons carried 160 loads for each of the six pours, managed by 25 workers from GRAHAM and Ready Mix, with slabs 1.5 m thick installed. 

“We’ve never done anything of this magnitude,” Greenwood told Teesside Live. 

It is also understood Aggregate Industries provided the concrete. 

South Bank Quay is financed by a £107 million UK Infrastructure Bank loan. 

When finished, the mammoth quay will enable SeAH Wind, as well as other offshore wind investors, direct access to River Tees and the North Sea, including to Dogger Bank wind farm for which J Murphy & Sons and HB Tunnelling Ltd have done tunnelling works. 

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