Harland and Wolff – best known for building the Titanic at its Belfast shipyard – has won a £61m contract to upgrade a ship used to store oil.
The refurbishment of SeaRose – a so-called floating production storage and offloading vessel – is due to begin at the start of 2024.
The vessel will be in the shipyard’s building dock for at least three months.
The project will need around 1,000 workers at its peak – providing a much-needed boost for the shipyard operator.
The business warned last month that the construction of new cruise ships had ‘stagnated’ amid the backdrop of soaring interest rates.
Historic: Harland and Wolff built the Titanic at its Belfast shipyard
Operators are instead ‘increasingly decommissioning old vessels and refurbishing other vessels as part of their mid-life upgrades’, the company said, adding that it ‘expects to benefit from this trend’.
It has opened offices in Southampton and Miami to vie for more work in the sector.
The firm revealed the plans as it reported widening half-year losses of £31.5m, up from £17.6m a year ago, despite a 65 per cent rise in revenues to £25.5m.
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