2020-03-01 Business Insider

REPORT: MARITIME SECTOR

http://www.insider.co.uk March 2020 INSIDER 77

I

T IS ONE of the least known

facts about the Scottish

economy. A handful of players

within two square miles in

Glasgow manage a significant

percentage of the world’s merchant

shipping fleet.

While shipbuilding and ferry

contracts may have been headline

news, ship management and other

parts of the marine and maritime

sector and the overall scale of it are

very much under the radar.

“People really don’t realise that

the two largest ship managers in the

world are based in Glasgow,” says

Douglas Lang, group managing

director of Anglo-Eastern Offshore

and chairman of the Scottish

Maritime Cluster. From its office

in the quiet, little-traversed Elliot

Street in Finnieston Anglo-Eastern

vies with near neighbour V.Ships for

bragging rights of being the biggest

ship manager in the world.

The other players within that two

square mile radius include Teekay

Shipping, one of the world’s largest

marine energy transportation

businesses, which shares a building

with Anglo-Eastern in Elliott Street.

Then in Woodside Crescent there is

J & J Denholm, which has a strong

claim to be the world’s oldest ship

management business and whose

ship management arm became part

of Anglo-Eastern, and which is

both a shareholder in it and client

of it. Also on the north side of the

River Clyde is Norbulk Shipping, a

technical ship management company,

in Glassford Street

On the south side of the river is

Malin Group, which has invested

£2m and lovingly restored the South

Rotunda building, turning it into

strikingly impressive modern offices

with a gallery at its top that boasts

remarkable panoramic views of

Glasgow’s waterfront and the city.

John MacSween, the group’s

managing director, says: “Malin

Group is solely focused on working

in the marine industry, things that go

in the sea, float on the sea or interact

with the sea. Across the group we’ve

got a heavy lift business in Glasgow,

which specialises in chartering and

moving abnormal pieces of cargo

around the country or the world

on behalf of clients, or supervising

cargo being moved on behalf of other

clients. The heaviest piece we’ve done

in the last 10 years was about

12,000 tonnes and the lightest single

piece we’ve moved is probably about

15 tonnes and everything in between.

“In Glasgow we’ve also got

Cleanships, a company focusing on

the drive to be more green, be more

environmentally sustainable, and

there are various environmental

regulations coming into force driving

ship owners down that line.”

Cleanships recently outgrew its

space in the South Rotunda and

shipped out to an office in Nelson

Mandela Place which hosts about

45 engineers who travel all around

the world from there.

In Aberdeen Malin Marine focuses

on consultancy services to the oil

and gas industry and has offshoots

carrying out specialised tasks. The

group also has a fabrication facility

in Renfrew with 30 staff including

welders and platers there, primarily

building Malin group designs.

“We touch on different parts

GLASGOW IS

HOME TO ENGINE

ROOM FOR WORLD SHIPPING

By KEN SYMON

We’re punching way above our weight

in the UK and London has woken up

to this and the Scottish Government

is waking up to this as well

Douglas Lang, Anglo-Eastern Offshore

Above: A third of the

merchant navy cadet

officers train at City

of Glasgow College’s

state of the art

facilities