Live95 Limerick Today Podcasts

New Jetty expansion and logistics park at Foynes port

Pat Keating joins Joe to discuss the new jetty expansion unveiled by the Shannon Foynes Port.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Duration:: 11m
Broadcast on:: 03 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

You're views, your news, your limerick today with Jonet on live 95. Now, Shannon Foyn's port has unveiled a new jetty and freight logistics hub for a 32 million euro investment and it has to do with offshore wind turbines and making Foyn's a supply chain hub of scale and you've heard a lot about the potential of wind and indeed wave energy in the longer term along the estuary well to explain a little bit more with Pat Keating who's the chief executive of Shannon Foyn's port company with us in your welcome Pat. Good morning to you so tell us a little bit more about this investment and the potential office. So, good morning, Jon, yeah, so yesterday we were delighted to have Minister Lawless and Minister Donovan down to do the officially opening of the work we completed earlier this year, which was two years in construction and about six years in the pre-planning planning process. So, just give you, I suppose, the sense of the time, scale, complexity of the project. But, yeah, what we basically delivered was 117 metres of new jetty joining our eastern west jettys at Foyn's which gives us an 850 metre, one long interrupt the jetty. That obviously provides more shipping capacity, faster ship turn around time, so time is money, so more efficiencies. And then, as you said, they're a new storage area adjacent to that new key and also a new reclaimed phase, one of our 38 hectare land acquired recently to build out a port warehousing logistics hub. So all of this infrastructure is absolutely critical international context to provide far as you stated there, the development of the offshore renewables industry, but also to provide a new national logistics hub at Foyn's to supply into the national economy. I suppose we've all, and we all see, when you go to Dublin, M50, the congestion around the east, our supply chain is totally lopsided towards the east, but this provides us really the incremental capacity to facilitate our population growth, because population growth means trade growth, at a non-congested point in the system. And I think that's critically important, so in terms of its new capacity, it's also looking to the future in the terms that are with decarbonised our supply chain, our transport supply chain, which is critically important to meet net zero targets, but also just being able to facilitate that national economic growth that's coming our way. And they're all hugely positive, but we need the infrastructure around them. Right, so presumably what we're seeing on the rail front and the development there, and then we know about the road project as well that will connect Foyn's, the bypassed era and on, all of that will help speed up the process and get more of what comes into Foyn's, to where it needs to be in the country. Absolutely, and I suppose that's the great thing about this, and I've spoken to you before about our master planning. This is all giant up, and Ireland and the government gets criticized for not enough of the giant up thinking, but we need to port infrastructure, we need that rail infrastructure, we need that road infrastructure. So the Limerick Defines Rail that's being currently constructed by Irish Rail at a cost of $105 million. The new Limerick Defines roadway, including their their bypass, as you mentioned, costing $450 million, plus so those two investments connect the port into the economy, if you like, and provide easy access, sustainable access. And what that means in real terms is that you can get a truck from Foyn's to somewhere like Collair, New Ridge area, in roughly two and a half hours with that infrastructure in place. So that offers a real viable alternative to your lopsided east coast, bringing everything through that bottleneck, if you like. Will it also take pressure off the N69, which has so many villages and communities living along it? Absolutely, as many of your listeners would be aware, it's a completely new road. So it's a motorway, dual-carriageway standard. It runs from there to right key and then south into Foyn's, sorry, north into Foyn's. So it's a new road. So for all of the communities, as you mentioned along, the current N69, most of those trucks will come off that road and allow those areas developed in more kind of recreational and safer, obviously, as well so for safer activity. So in a lot of ways, this is a win-win for everybody. This is the first major step we've had many projects to date, but it is also proof that our plans are being implemented in actions. If you look at yesterday, we had a $32 million launch. We have the rail and road infrastructure. It is on the way. The advanced works for the road have started as well as everybody knows. The rail is at construction. Our plans for a new deep water jetty, 800 meter deep water jetty at Foyn's are well advanced. We intend to be at an umbrella with a planning application next year. So there's a confluence of actions coming together and being implemented right now, as we speak. All of those investments, by the way, represent about a 1 billion euro investment in and around the port company. So there's a lot being mobilized here. We've heard an awful lot, and we've debated it on this show in recent years about the potential of the estuary, particularly for wind power, and 20% of our electricity in the country is now used in data centers. For example, a significant portion of our electricity is still imported from the UK. We should be net exporters of energy, and we should be entirely self-sufficient, but we need this to happen, don't we? Absolutely. We like the whole energy paradigm is shifting to offshore renewables, and again, the Shannon estuary with its deep water shelter is proximate to the biggest wind resource in the world being the Atlantic. And as we launched our plans, and Shannon estuary economic task force last year identified up to 70 gigawatts of wind power that's accessible right now. You don't have to go chasing for it. It's there. It's indefinite because the wind doesn't stop. So we have 70 gigawatts on our doorstep. That's about 13 times the size of the current Irish grid. So as you stated there, we have sufficient power available on our doorstep to not only serve our own needs and become energy independent for the first time in our history, but also to act as the solution for European demand for green energy. And you know, so having that infinite supply of green energy on our doorstep, the challenge for us as a country is to actually realize that power and bring it into use. During the shorter term, the government seems on the track of nearer shore wind turbines, don't they, rather than pushed out more into the Atlantic. So when can we expect progress? And I understand that every step you're talking about is part of this journey to the point that we will have that supply of Shannon. Yeah. So I suppose we have to start today, but in reality, you won't see turbines spinning in the Atlantic, where we're talking of mid-next decade, but in order to deliver large capex projects of the nature that's required, there are 10-year lead times. So that's why, and I suppose to be fair to the government, they did publish plans in March where they have real targets now of 20 gigawatts by 2040, 37 by 2050 from the offshore renewable resources. So they are starting to plan on the entire resource we have available. Can I just ask you, but there will be jobs on the road to the mid-20s. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Every time you have investment of this scale, again, going back to the Shannon industry, economic task force, that fund by mid-next decade, you could have 12 to 14,000 jobs, I think, from this wind industry and up to 50,000 new jobs and high-quality jobs by 2050. So the supply chain for this is vast, under the other side, the demand side, the use is you put that power to, whether it is hydrogen, alternative fuels or blending into the grid, are vast as well, data centers, as you mentioned. So this is a real economic, I suppose, opportunity, it is energy, but it's economic opportunity as well. But of course, it's a competitive world and others are, and maybe they're moving a bit quicker than us right now. Well, I suppose, for a lot of people in the sector, in the industry, that's the frustration that we have possibly the best resources, we have the best wind resources in Europe. But in some respects, we are behind our competition, the UK or near-neighbor, is maybe four to five years ahead of us in terms of the policy, the planning rollout, auctions, all that kind of stuff. So we certainly currently are behind in some aspects, but I think there's a realization as well at a government level, and we saw Minister Harris over the, you know, the teacher writing over the weekend, identifying again the call out in the open from the Shandesser Economic Task Force and Minister for Infrastructure, all that. So I think there is more of a realization that we are behind that we need to catch up. Right, and just very, very briefly, the wave production technology, that is a slightly longer term project, because the tech still isn't quite where it needs to be, unlike wind, is that right? Yeah, so the tech required for the Atlantic is floating offshore. It is, the tech is there, what it needs to be is refined and mass-produced to bring down the costs. But the cost trend is no different than offshore wind, offshore fixed wind. That's going to happen. There's a lot of effort research being put into that. So the industry is confident that this floating offshore technology will be as competitive. No, for floating offshore. For wind. It will be as competitive mid-next-decade as what we have for fixed offshore. But wave is totally different. Wave is from a design concept. It's still more infant, you know, but maybe with progress in time. But offshore wind is really where it's at. Right, very good. Okay, well, listen. It's great to see this latest development at Shannon Foynes Report, and we look forward to talking to you more about it as the plans roll out and the project takes more shape. Keating who's CEO of Shannon Foynes Report Company. Thanks for coming in. Thank you. Your views, your news, your limerick today, with Jonas, on live 95. (upbeat music) You