If you see massive oil rigs towering over a small fjord village, that is Westcon Yards in Ølensvåg. This is one of Norway's major shipyards for offshore maintenance and repair, and the contrast is striking: a quiet farming and fishing community with 200,000 square metres of industrial yard and 1,200 metres of quay.
Westcon was founded in 1963 by the local Matre family and adapted to rig maintenance in the early 1990s when the North Sea oil industry needed more capacity. The dry dock handles vessels up to 170 metres long and can lift 10,000 tonnes. When a rig comes in for service, it dominates the skyline completely.
The yard employs hundreds of people and at peak times houses up to 1,000 workers in temporary accommodation. For a village of this size, that changes everything, from the local shops to the traffic on the road. Besides the main yard in Ølensvåg, Westcon also operates yards in Florø, Karmsund, and Helgeland.
You cannot visit the yard itself, but the rigs are hard to miss from the E134.
Westcon was founded in 1963 by the local Matre family and adapted to rig maintenance in the early 1990s when the North Sea oil industry needed more capacity. The dry dock handles vessels up to 170 metres long and can lift 10,000 tonnes. When a rig comes in for service, it dominates the skyline completely.
The yard employs hundreds of people and at peak times houses up to 1,000 workers in temporary accommodation. For a village of this size, that changes everything, from the local shops to the traffic on the road. Besides the main yard in Ølensvåg, Westcon also operates yards in Florø, Karmsund, and Helgeland.
You cannot visit the yard itself, but the rigs are hard to miss from the E134.