Motherwell Bridge partnership aids AD sector expansion

Motherwell Bridge has announced details of a strategic partnership that will help the company secure further work within Britain’s anaerobic digestion (AD) sector.

Lanarkshire-based Motherwell Bridge has formed a partnership with Austria’s Entec Biogas, which has been involved in the construction of biogas plants throughout the world, including Europe, India, Korea, Japan, Malawi and the US.

Motherwell Bridge now aims to tender for a series of large-scale contracts within the AD sector, which is one of Europe’s fastest-growing renewable-energy sectors. AD is the process of converting organic matter − including food waste, sewage and silage − into biogas that can be used to generate electricity.

Russell Ward, chief executive of Motherwell Bridge, said: ’The UK’s AD sector is now starting to develop and that is why we took the decision earlier this year to position the business in the renewable sector, in addition to the oil and gas along with power and energy sectors.

‘We have extensive experience in gas-storage systems and storage-tank design, and by aligning ourselves with a company such as Entec… we now have the necessary technical know-how to design and construct a biogas plant,’ he said.

The development at Motherwell Bridge follows an announcement in July 2010 that the company had secured a three-year contract worth in excess of $22m (£14m) to build and refurbish 19 oil-storage tanks in Liberia, West Africa.

The Liberian Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC) appointed Motherwell Bridge to build a petroleum-products storage facility in the capital city of Monrovia, which on completion in 2013 will enable the LPRC to significantly increase the fuel-holding capacity of Liberia.