Hunting Energy Services

Hunting Energy Services was a new build in the Brackengate Business Park that comprised a 4,000m² warehouse with a double-storey office block to the side. Hunting is an international company that provides products and services to the upstream oil and gas industry. The development’s biggest challenge was the gantry beam that spanned the width of the warehouse — tolerances on the beam were at mere millimetres. A blast room where manufactured pipes could be tested under extreme pressure was also constructed. The walls of the blast chamber had to be 400 mm thick, made of concrete with steel plates on the inside, and with huge swing doors that could withstand the blasts.

To eliminate all external factors and to prevent external cracking in the cement wall, specialist tests were done to ascertain the impact of trains using the adjacent railway line. This due diligence was important as tests found that a goods train that passed the site every night caused minor vibrations in the earth that could cause concrete slabs left to set overnight to crack before the concrete had time to set properly.