UK and South Korea Help Secure Millions for World’s Largest Monopile Factory

Business & Finance

November 27, 2023, by Adnan Memija

UK Export Finance (UKEF) and South Korea’s export credit agency Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-Sure) have helped SeAH Wind to secure GBP 367 million in Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC UK financing to build the world’s largest wind monopile manufacturing facility.

UKEF and K-Sure have secured support worth GBP 367 million for South Korean manufacturer SeAH Steel Holding’s construction of a wind tech factory near Redcar, in the Tees Valley.

Issuing its first-ever “Invest-to-Export” loan guarantee to secure overseas investment in British industry, UKEF together with K-Sure has ensured that SeAH Wind UK can fund the construction project – worth almost GBP 500 million – with GBP 367 million in financing from Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC UK.

SeAH Wind UK, a subsidiary of South Korean steel company SeAH Steel Holding, announced its decision to invest and broke ground at Teesworks Freeport last summer.

Once fully operational, the facility, which will become SeAH Wind’s first such resource outside South Korea, is expected to produce between 100 and 150 monopiles per year that will be transported directly from the factory to Teesworks’s new GBP 107 million heavy-lift South Bank Quay before heading to the North Sea for installation using specialised pile driving equipment.

The monopile factory will create 1,500 jobs in the supply chain and during construction, with an additional 750 roles once the factory is fully operational in 2026.