Burntisland Fabrications is bidding for several contracts that it hopes could sustain employment for its workforce.
The company, known as Bifab, has bid for work in sectors including petrochemicals, renewables and oil and gas. If it secures some of those contracts it is likely to retain its existing staff of about 1,000 people — most of whom are hired through agencies — even though its contract to make foundation structures for turbines at the £2.6 billion Beatrice offshore wind farm will come to an end in the next few weeks.
The engineering company almost went into administration in November after a dispute with Seaway Heavy Lifting, the main contractor on Beatrice, affected its cashflow. Intervention from the Scottish government and the offer of a loan of up to £15 million helped to resolve the situation.
EEW, another of the suppliers on Beatrice, has begun legal action against Bifab for what was described as a substantial sum.
Operations at Bifab’s Arnish yard on Lewis have been wound down in recent weeks. Its facilities in Fife are still running and the workforce has been reduced to 1,000 since mid-November.
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A spokesman said that the company had always reduced the number of agency workers it used between contracts but retained a core staff of about 250 directly employed people.
He confirmed that tender applications had been made in several sectors and that the company was not “rushing” to get rid of people.
“There are projects out there and we are targeting them as are a lot of other companies,” he said.
“It is a competitive tendering process and we are guaranteed nothing. If we get a contract in the next month or two months we would maintain the workforce as we know we don’t want to lose them. Good people always get jobs and we don’t want to struggle to get skilled people back again.”
Jenny Hogan, deputy chief executive at Scottish Renewables, said that it was important to retain companies operating in the design, manufacture and deployment of renewable technology.