Ferguson Marine

Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Limited is a shipbuilding company whose yard, located in Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, was established in 1903. It is the last remaining shipbuilder on the lower Clyde and is currently the only builder of merchant ships on the river.

For some years the company's mainstay has been Roll-on/roll-off ferries, primarily for Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac), including a series of hybrid diesel-electric/battery-powered vessels. Beset with difficulties since 2018 over their latest two CalMac ferries, Fergusons' largest ever vessel, the shipyard was nationalised in December 2019. It is now classified as an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government.

History

Ferguson Brothers

The Ferguson shipyard was founded as a partnership by four brothers, (Peter, Daniel, Louis and Robert) who left the Fleming & Ferguson shipyard in Paisley to lease the Newark yard in Port Glasgow in March 1903. The first vessel built by Messrs. Ferguson Brothers in the yard was the tug ''Flying Swift'', launched on 26 October 1903. Ferguson Brothers acquired the freehold in the yard in 1907 and was incorporated as Ferguson Brothers (Port Glasgow) Ltd in 1912. The company was purchased by John Slater Ltd (Amalgamated Industries) in 1918 but returned to control of the Ferguson family in the late 1920s. Lithgows Ltd purchased an interest in the business after Bobby Ferguson's death in 1954 and took control of the Company in 1961. Ferguson Brothers remained a separate entity within the Scott Lithgow group from 1969 to 1977.

The company was nationalised and subsumed into British Shipbuilders in 1977, then merged with the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company to form Ferguson-Ailsa Ltd in 1980.

Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd

Ferguson and Ailsa were separated in 1986 when the latter yard was sold and Ferguson was merged with Appledore Shipbuilders in Devon to form Appledore Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd. By the late 1980s only the Appledore Ferguson yards were still held in state ownership. Ferguson was demerged from Appledore and acquired by Greenock-based engineering firm Clark Kincaid in 1989 then started trading as Ferguson Shipbuilders.

Clark Kincaid itself was acquired by Kvaerner and became Kvaerner Kincaid in 1990, and the Ferguson yard sold to Ferguson Marine plc in 1991. The entire shareholding in Ferguson Marine was acquired by the Holland House Electrical Group in 1995. The sign above the main gate continued the name Ferguson Shipbuilders Limited. After they encountered difficulty in maintaining a flow of work, a Scottish Executive cabinet meeting on 1 June 2005 discussed news that orders for fishery protection vessels and a CalMac ferry had been won by the Remontowa shipyard in Gdańsk. The environment and rural affairs minister Ross Finnie said "If the contracts were awarded to the Rementowa (Polish) yard, there were no other orders in prospect for the Clydeside shipyard and since the launch of its last ship a month previously, the yard had declined to a state that was close to irreversible." The cabinet noted "with concern the outlook for the Ferguson shipyard". In August 2005 Fergusons laid off 100 members of staff, and this was discussed by Finnie at a cabinet meeting. The minutes of the meeting record that "It was difficult to explain to Scottish taxpayers why public funds were being used to buy a vessel from Poland and make redundancy payments to shipbuilders in Port Glasgow."

Between 2013 and 2016 the yard built three hybrid diesel-electric/battery powered ferries, beginning with ''Hallaig'' - the world's first.

Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd.

In August 2014, the shipyard placed the company into administration and the following month Clyde Blowers Capital, an industrial company owned by Jim McColl, purchased the yard for £600,000 and renamed it Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd (FMEL).

In August 2015, government-owned Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) announced that an order for two ferries for Caledonian MacBrayne service, capable of operating on either marine diesel oil or liquefied natural gas, had been won by Fergusons. Originally intended for delivery during 2018, construction difficulties (the reasons for which are in dispute) led to a two-year delay for the first ship, '' Glen Sannox'', which was launched in November 2017.

FMEL was part of two consortia's bids for the programme for five type 31 frigates for the Royal Navy, worth some £1.25 billion. The consortia are those led by Babcock International and Atlas Elektronik UK. After their bid was selected, a contract was formally awarded to Babcock Group on 15 November 2019, for an average production cost of £250 million per ship and an overall programme cost set to be £2 billion.

On 30 October 2018, FMEL secured a contract to construct a large air cushioned barge for Mangistau ACV Solutions Ltd, part of the CMI Offshore Ltd Group, with estimated completion scheduled in 2019. In December 2018 FMEL announced that two orders worth £5.4 million had been secured from Inverlussa Marine Services for fish farm support vessels, to be completed in May 2019, and that three more for fishing vessels, totaling £11 million, were in the pipeline. Cutting first steel on the Inverlusa order began in early 2019, but by July 2019 the ferry dispute had led to delays in closing the trawler contracts.

Attempts by Clyde Blowers Capital to negotiate with the Scottish Government over increased costs and delays to ferries failed, and on 9 August 2019 the directors of FMEL gave notice that the company would be put into administration. This led to a bitter dispute between the Scottish Government and the former owners of the shipyard. On 16 August Finance Secretary Derek Mackay visited the yard to announce that the Scottish Government would take over management of Ferguson Marine to allow work to continue on current orders, and that if no private buyer could be found in four weeks, the yard would be nationalised by purchase. The government appointed marine engineer Tim Hair as turnaround director. At the start of December, after three private bids to purchase the yard were rejected as being insufficiently favourable to creditors, the government formally took ownership of the shipyard, and in the process wrote off about £50 million of previous loans.

Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Ltd.

The commercial transaction nationalising the shipyard was completed on 2 December 2019, making it a new business named Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Ltd..

The costs and viability of completing contracts was investigated, and on 22 January 2020 turnaround director Tim Hair told a Scottish Parliament inquiry that the large ferries and Hull 802 were "significantly less than half built", with 95% of their design still to be agreed with the client body Caledonian Maritime Assets. Additional naval architects and marine engineers had been engaged to complete this design work.

The vessels for Inverlussa Marine Services were built in the large prefabrication shed. The 21-metre fish farm workboat was named ''Helen Rice'' in a launch ceremony on 27 January 2020 attended by Scotland's finance and economy secretary Derek Mackay, then lifted by crane into the water on 29 January. Sea trials and delivery were completed in March. That month, Ferguson Marine announced that they had taken a four year lease on a large warehouse sited at Greenock waterfront, and would use it to consolidate stock and materials which had been stored in several warehouses near Glasgow Airport. The large air cushioned barge for CMI Offshore Ltd (ordered from FMEL in 2018) was launched on 24 June 2020, to be taken to the Caspian Sea to be completed and outfitted for oil exploration work in that area.

The company's board of directors with six non–executive members, including Alistair Mackenzie as chairman, was appointed in June 2020 by the Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary Fiona Hyslop.

In February 2021, the firm announced it would take on 120 additional workers with the intention of operating seven days per week. On 15 March the 26-metre fish treatment workboat for Inverlussa was airbag launched, and named ''Kallista Helen''.

The bulbous bow of Hull 802 was fitted in September 2021, and reported as a landmark in significant progress to both ships, deliveries of which by January 2022 were running up to five years late.

Fergusons had bid for two new ferries to be ordered by CMAL, but was not included on the shortlist to submit detailed tenders. On 16 December David Tydeman was appointed chief executive, to take over from Tim Hair in February 2022.

On 16 March 2023, Tydeman wrote to Scottish Ministers requesting a reset of the timetable for delivery of the two ferries to no later than end 2023 for ''Glen Sannox'' (Hull 801) and no later than end 2024 for Hull 802. The shipyard is aiming to delivering earlier – ''Glen Sannox'' in autumn 2023 and Hull 802 before late summer 2024.

In May 2023, Ferguson announced that it had secured an initial contract with BAE Systems to fabricate three steel units for HMS ''Belfast'', the third City Class Type 26 frigate currently being constructed by BAE Systems.

Vessels built

Ferguson Marine (FMEL 2014–2019, FMPG since 2019)

Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd (1991–2014)

Appledore Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd (1986–1989)

Ferguson-Ailsa Ltd (1983–1986)

Ferguson Brothers (Port Glasgow) Ltd (1912–1983)

See also

Ferry fiasco - for the Scottish political controversy around the construction of the ''Glen Sannox'' and ''Glen Rosa.''

References

External links

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Shipbuilding companies of Scotland
Companies based in Inverclyde
River Clyde
British companies established in 1903
Manufacturing companies established in 1903
Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1977
1903 establishments in Scotland
1977 disestablishments in Scotland
Re-established companies
Manufacturing companies established in 1986
1986 establishments in Scotland
Port Glasgow
British companies established in 1986
British Shipbuilders
Executive non-departmental public bodies of the Scottish Government