Harland & Wolff has a new owner who plans to challenge the traditional drydock model and offer something a bit different.
John Wood, Group Chief Executive Officer for H&W, has enjoyed a distinguished career within the oil and gas sector, holding senior posts with BAE Systems, and was more recently the Global Head of Oil and Gas with Aurecon, a global engineering and advisory firm.
“One of the things that we are doing is to try and challenge the traditional drydock model, which has been no cash – no splash, and very, very commercial,” he explains. “We have taken the opposite view to that and said – well look, we have got a facility here, let’s see how we can work with you to develop that relationship to really do something a bit different, to provide a bespoke offer to individual owners.”
He goes on to say; ” Clearly, it is exciting times for us at the moment, particularly since we acquired Harland & Wolff at the back end of last year. I certainly think a COVID-19 pandemic was not in our business plan when we bought the yard.”
However, things have been improving, as he explains; “We have taken the dock gate out in the building dock to carry out the ten year maintenance on it because we see it will be like Armageddon by the end of the year. For all the dockings that have been delayed, and delayed and delayed. We are already seeing a large increase in enquiries.”
Read more about what Wood has to say in the latest issue of DryDock