A MARINE engineering firm's new 40,000 sq ft manufacturing plant in Darlington has been officially opened by the Duke of Gloucester.

Subsea Innovation Ltd specialises in making launch and recovery systems that deploy remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and, in congratulating the company on its success, the Duke said he hoped to see it on future Queen's Awards lists.

Martin Moon, managing director, said it is currently working on launch and recovery systems for Subsea 7, which has a base in Aberdeen, and TMT, the Australian ROV maker.

Other orders it is working on include supplying16 large suction pile plugs to a huge floating production, storage and offloading vessel in South Australia; pipeline clamps for Rasgas, which operate the Qatar Al Khaleej gas project; working alongside Heerema in the Netherlands; and supplying waterstops which protect pipelines to US-based offshore company Emas and France's Technip.

Mr Moon said the new plant at Faverdale means it can carry out larger work for the oil, gas and energy sectors.“We can assemble complete systems, our floatable tank means we can do more testing, and our cranes give us more height, so we can go through the whole cycle," he said.

“We have a lot of work on and it’s allowed us to take our workforce to 50. “It was fantastic to have the Duke here to open the factory because it not only highlighted the work we are doing, but the tremendous job the architect and builder both did on the site.”

The builder was Darlington-based J and RM Richardson of Darlington and the design was by Darlington Architects Design Group.

Unveiling a large floor plaque to mark the opening the Duke of Gloucester said: "This company has some wonderful products, and I look forward to seeing it on the list of future Queen’s Awards. We are all aware of the impact when things go wrong in the industry, so to have such a reliable firm makes a huge difference."