GULFMARK COMPANY HISTORY

In 1989 Lehman Brothers, the merchant bank purchased the Lafayette based supply vessel company Offshore Logistics. They bought the remainder of a large and diverse fleet which had been best known in the North Sea for their ownership of the American built anchor handlers Magnus Sea, Maureen Sea et al, originally the Theriot One to Six, brought over to Scotland in about 1975. These six ships with 7200 Bhp available were the most powerful Offshore Logistics ever owned.

In 1990 GulfMark, as Gulf Offshore, expanded into the North Sea in a positive manner, purchasing two small platform ships the Highland Sprite and the Highland Legend and building two large PSVs the Highland Pride and Highland Star. The latter were two of the last and best of the UT705s, constructed before the inception of the UT745. The company set up an office in Aberdeen to administer the fleet but like all small operators found that the provision of proper onshore support used a disproportionate amount of revenue, and if the support was set at an appropriate financial level the service to the ships and the clients was less than adequate.

In 1993 GulfMark’s search for an answer to this problem coincided with BP's effort to reduce its peripheral activities and GulfMark purchased BP Shipping’s small fleet of offshore vessels, which comprised both owned and managed ships and a complete support service. The ships which became part of the GulfMark fleet included, the Balblair (renamed Highland Champion), and the Northern Fortress (renamed Highland Fortress); both Ulstein designed platform ships. Further fleet acquisitions took place in 1996 when the company purchased six ships in the Far East and again in 1998 when GulfMark purchased the Norwegian Brovig fleet of five vessels.

Since then the company has steadily expanded from its Aberdeen base and at the end of 2000 operated eighteen owned ships from the port, mainly UT705s, 745s and 755s and had a further two 755s on bareboat charter. Two KMAR404s are also bareboated. The company has also maintained its traditional stance of combining ownership with management, and manages fifteen or so vessels, depending at any time on the aspirations of the owners and the state of the market.

Internationally GulfMark, despite its American origins, has made a policy decision to trade in what the annual report describes as areas with "higher barriers to entry", which in their view results in lower levels of competition and less volatile day rates. Hence their other major areas of activity are the Far East and Brazil. Ten moderately powered anchor-handlers, a platform supply vessel and one crew boat are operated in the Far East.

The Brazilians seem now to have an insatiable hunger for modern European designed support craft having more or less accidentally hired one in the mid eighties, and GulfMark now has several ships operating there, mostly bareboated tonnage and mostly now owned by Tidewater who will not be taking over the ships until the initial three year hires plus two by one year options have been completed. The Tidewater purchases include the vessels formerly owned by Sanko, the UT755 Mercury Bay, currently on hire to ASCo in the North Sea, and the KMAR404 Leopard Bay which is working in Brazil for Petrobras. These ships are admired as much for their tasteful colour scheme as for their technical specification.

Another bareboated 755 the Monarch Bay is the first of the company's vessel to operate in West Africa.

A recent purchase is the Highland Pioneer, a UT706 which was formerly part of the Lowline fleet. This vessel has joined the company operation in Liverpool Bay. There Gulf provides logistic support for BHP, and as well as the Highland Pioneer it operates four ERRVs (Emergency Response and Rescue Vessels) formerly SBVs. These are three managed and one owned vessel, the latter in the form of the Highland Sprite one of the small platform ships which made up the original fleet in 1990. In addition to the marine support the company also provides an oil spill response service for both BHP and a number of ports up and down the west coast of England.

It is this diverse and innovative service to which David Kenwright, Division Manager of Gulf Offshore NS, attributes their continued success. He says that Gulf was heavily involved in the development of the UT755 when they commissioned the Highland Piper and Highland Drummer in 1996, never realising that the UT755 was to become the second most successful design in the history of the Ulstein. They went on to commission the Highland Rover, a 755 with the ability to carry out survey work, with the addition of a moonpool, extra accommodation and DP capability and that vessel was delivered in 1998. It was hired by Allseas to work with the Solitaire.

Gulf believe in identifying markets and then building ships to fulfil them. In this way the company avoids the curious reverse auctions and long term technical evaluations beloved of the oil majors, who seem to enjoy nothing more than seeing half a dozen Ship-owners jump through hoops in an effort to gain a single vessel contract two years into the future. "The reality," says David Kenwright, "is that if you have already identified their potential requirements and you can fulfil them tomorrow, you are more likely to get the job, and you will get a better dayrate."

The company has a policy of employing North European or Canadian officers and in European waters employ European ratings. In other parts of the world it still maintains the policy of using European officers but tends to use Philippine ratings. They may also use one or two local officers in addition to the core crew in part for their lingual capabilities.

Gulf Offshore have experienced comparatively little difficulty in recruiting, despite the general reduction in the North European marine workforce. At the last major recruitment drive 300 positions were filled from 800 interviewees, who were themselves chosen from a much larger number of applicants. And despite this human recourses success, they have 40 cadets and always sponsor their officers through their examinations for certificates of competency. This combined with excellent rates of pay means that the turnover of officers is less than 1% per year.

In addition to what might be called "conventional" projects the company is prepared to take on a diversity of marine enterprises. In a complete change to previous building policy they ordered two ships from the US Gulf shipbuilder Bender. These vessel were intended to operate in the US Gulf and as a consequence bear many of the hallmarks of ships built for that area, but when they were completed it was decided that it would be more financially rewarding to charter them into the company's existing areas of operation, so as a consequence the Highland Guide is on long term charter in Brazil and the Highland Scout is to operate for two years supporting activities off Indonesia.

In conjunction with TMI, the company manage three seismic vessels the Aker Symphony, the Labrador Horizon and the Austral Horizon and also identified the support of FPSOs as a growth area. To this end they purchased a bare hull in the Far East and had it towed back to the UK, where they outfitted it at George Prior's at Lowestoft. In order to fit it for its intended task it was provided with a moonpool for ROV work, an azimuthing thruster, survivor accommodation and hospital facilities. On deck rescue zones were created and provision made for an FRC and a daughter craft. This vessel has become the Highland Spirit and is employed supporting the FPSO on BP's Schiehallion.

2000 has seen a number of vessels depart from the managed fleet. Dominating the changes has been the purchase of a number of ships by Tidewater, including the UT745 Ace Navigator which has become the Russell Tide and the UT755-L Gargano which briefly achieved some fame when renamed Madonna Tide, at almost the same time as the marriage of the lady of the same name to Guy Ritchie just a little to the North of Aberdeen at Dornoch.

The company has on order two UT755s, two UT775L’s, two UT745’s, and three UT722L’s for delivery between July 2001 and December 2003, and may well be contracted to manage some of the other 61 vessels currently being constructed. David Kenwright considers the current spate of newbuildings to be less that the number required to replace to vessels which will inevitably go to the breakers, or be abandoned to languish in some delta swamp in the next couple of years. With the age of some fleets now approaching twenty years he sees the future for GulfMark as bright - and blue hulled with white upperworks and a "G" on the funnel.

THESE WORDS APPEARED IN THE OFFSHORE SUPPORT JOURNAL IN FEBRUARY 2001