Navantia UK has reported progress on a new building at its Methil yard in Fife, part of a wider investment programme across its UK sites, the company stated.
The company said construction of a new Rubb building was well under way, funded through £26.7 million earmarked for Methil within a £157 million UK-wide investment programme. Once complete, according to Navantia, the facility will provide additional covered space for blasting, coating and finishing work, allowing teams to work year-round in a controlled environment.
Navantia said the Methil workforce had grown from around 180 to more than 260 people, including over 50 apprentices. Having delivered the Navantia UK Seahorse transport barge earlier this year, the yard is now working on what the company described as a major export order.
The Seahorse barge, completed in the spring, was the first major project delivered at Methil since Navantia UK began operations there in January 2025, and represented an £8 million investment in the facility. The barge is designed to carry ship blocks between UK yards in support of the Fleet Solid Support programme, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary supply ship project being led from Navantia’s Belfast yard under the Team Resolute banner.
Navantia UK, the British arm of the Spanish state-owned shipbuilder, acquired the four former Harland & Wolff yards at Belfast, Appledore, Methil and Arnish at the start of 2025 after the previous owner entered administration. The company has since set out an investment programme covering all four sites, with Methil and Arnish in Scotland focused largely on offshore energy fabrication alongside marine construction.
According to Navantia, the Methil investment also encompasses roof repairs, refurbished cranes, a new cutting machine, a steel plate storage facility, a training centre and a self-propelled modular transporter. The company has positioned the yard to take advantage of Scotland’s expanding offshore wind programme, including the ScotWind Array Release 7 leasing round, which is expected to drive demand for fabrication capacity.
The yard has also featured in the company’s pitch for future defence work. As the UK Defence Journal has previously reported, Navantia UK has put Methil forward for Programme Euston, the Royal Navy’s plan to build floating dry docks to support its submarine fleet. At the Seahorse handover, Methil chief executive Donato Martinez told the workforce the yard had earned the right to be trusted with larger contracts, saying it would be honoured if the Ministry of Defence placed its confidence in Navantia UK to deliver the work.
Looks like these types of building could be constructed quickly and easily virtually anywhere and could be used for constructing virtually any of the kit we are constantly moaning we haven’t got.
We also moan we haven’t got the facilities whereas it would seem with a little effort we could have.
Great to see investment going in to Methil, worth pointing out though this is all government money agreed as a support package for Navantia’s takeover of H&W. Babcock is a British company having to compete and putting its hand in its own pocket.
Jim Putinbot spouting misinformation as usual. Babcok’s is not independently wealthy, all the money it uses for shipbuilding infrastructure comes from the UK government.
If I read correctly the investment being made by Navantia is over and above what was required as part of FSS and acquisition.
Come on Grinch this ain’t it. Everyone has different opinion’s and knowledge on certain things, thats what this forum is about, its meant to be abit of fun. I disagree with alot of Jims points but its pretty certain he’s not a Putin lover or a bot.
naughty Step for me then !
The building itself is fairly straight forward..it’s the fitting out internal that can takes time with any Specialised Equipment… No size is give for the building???
But it looks like 20mtrs long by 15mtrs wide and high !
Wonder if they intend build EUSTONdocks here.?
What else could it do to support Euston?? 🙄
I’m no Expert on Dry Dock building ..
But this build in itself is not sufficient to build Dru Docks of ~180×40mts…Wondering if futher investment at the site is possible
It’s presumably intended for working on blocks, not whole vessels.
Going to be a lot of blocks..?
New UKDJ Head Office ?
Good news. Most of UK shipbuilding enjoys dated infrastructure that needs replacing.
Those bits that haven’t been sold off already! ie Swan Hunters iconic cranes, floating dock and other equipment were sold to Bharati Shipyards. The entire plant machinery and equipment from Swan Hunter was dismantled and transported to India over six months to be rebuilt at Bharati Shipyards.
Lierally selling capability. Had HMG replaced Type 23 after its predicted 18 year life then we may have retained more capability. We currently struggle to put a meaningful Navy presence to sea. Our Submarines are tied up because shore facilities have been neglected and run down. not a pretty picture
20 years ago mate. Get your head up to date.
Meanwhile those who made the decisions are living it up in well paid Govt funded retirement. The historical factors behind present day issues (both military and economic) are a vital ingredient to ensuring doing better in the future, so important to discuss them as any objective viewer would understand.
We do as a country have a Certain capability for Self Destruction…The Political Classes infatuation with the financial,Service and building sectors has Rather backfired as some of us new it would…Industry and Agriculture are the Foundation of any major country and without Foundation you ultimately have Nothing..!
Tru dat
It’s an area sadly that Margaret Thatcher simply did not comprehend in her ‘modernisation’ scheme and sadly that almost messianic thinking that could not be challenged, continued in Conservative thinking (geez even with New Labour) until relatively recently when the value of actually building stuff has finally hit home, helped by a little lateral thinking about its wider impact on ukplc. Services are great but you can’t simply be a one trick pony and so often they intrinsically rely upon original product as Babcock has recently flourished from and France especially in defence have made a fortune from.
Actually at this point a focused and selective industrial regeneration is probably a major opportunity for Britain to regain some traction in areas or new potential areas we still have capability to exploit, because those like Germany that remained industrial powerhouses are going to seriously struggle to retain that role under the onslaught of China and newly developing Asian juggernauts hitting deeply into their traditional powerhouses like car production as VW are finding to their complacent cost. They, like us in the 60s and 70s are going be consumed with dealing with that. A lot of our opportunity will undoubtedly focus around defence companies where despite the culling we still have champions, and the new SMEs that can be generated from it. It’s no surprise that a number of those originate from the F1 sector which we dominate and provide an unmatched high tech advantage in some growing areas and now given impetus by defence contracts. Pity we didn’t see this as an obvious opportunity a lot earlier instead of depressing defence activities to save short term money, while losing a lot of the companies that once supported the main players, let alone the main players themselves who went out of business or got auctioned out to foreign players with more vision and/or Govt support than us. Hey maybe in a warped way Putin has done us a favour in the end forcing us to think differently. If we don’t take advantage we only have ourselves to blame.
Excellent Summary..sadly politicians of all colours seem to be blind to anything beyond the Simple…lndustry and Agriculture are hard graft with no Guarantees.. To many lawyers and Barristers in Parliament who shun anyone with those skills..
Regulatory Specification will be required before any Design work on the Euston Project can begin ..
Maybe sometime yet before any Production Tendering takes place…!