Bridon’s £30m Investment in Rope Factory

Bridon International has invested £30m in a factory that will produce multi-strand ropes in gross package weights of up to 650 tonnes, making them “the largest and most complex in the world,” it said. The facility will produce crane ropes of unmatched strength, safety and durability, it added.

The Bridon Neptune Quay site, which is located on Tyneside, UK, will be fully operational by the end of 2012. Bridon has already received production inquiries from a number of major multinational operators, and is planning a production schedule that will cater to high levels of demand.

Key to the site’s unrivalled capacity is its unique closer machine, which is used to draw together thousands of wire strands into a single rope. Bridon’s closer is capable of making a 600 tonne rope in a single pass, enabling the production of longer and higher capacity ropes in a single piece, avoiding the need for multiple passes.

Bridon Neptune Quay’s closer also boasts 24 bobbins (15 and 38 tonne capacity), giving it the ability to make complex ropes. Up until now, closers capable of producing very large ropes have typically had no more than eight bobbins. The site’s deep-water portside location will allow Bridon to use innovative loading solutions to reduce delivery timescales and order lead times for customers.

“Bridon Neptune Quay has been built to help us solve our customers’ most significant technological challenges, whether it is reaching new depths off the coast of Brazil, or operating in some of the most challenging environmental conditions on earth,” said Jon Templeman, CEO, Bridon Group.