Cromarty Firth entrepreneur Roy MacGregor is in an ebullient mood these days. His Global Energy Group is storming ahead, fuelled by an excellent and fast growing contracts book; successfully securing the famous Nigg fabrication yard a year ago; and sure in his mind that corporate succession is taken care of through sons Donald and Iain.
“I don’t know when it was that things started to really take off, but last year we put 48% more on to our business and, during the first six months of this year we were running at 50% more,” says Global’s chairman.
“Now that’s quite exceptional and you can see that within the next couple of years this will be a half billion pounds (£500million) business. The objective is to build a £1billion business.”
And this is effectively being achieved from a standing start in 2005 when this serial entrepreneur decided to start up Global, partly for the benefit of his talented sons, both of whom showed an aptitude for the offshore industry.
MacGregor is crystal clear that a company like Global can only succeed by planning way ahead . . . seeking the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But this is no illusion, it’s real.
Working in the MacGregor family’s favour is the fact that the North Sea is booming again and they enjoy diverse opportunities. For example, they command by far the biggest slice of the subsea systems market, they are big players in rig inspection, repair and maintenance and they have built a number of wave and tidal device prototypes.
The successful acquisition of the Nigg yard is the priming mechanism for the next leap forward for Global. It took a lot less than the year since acquisition to get the huge drydock beck up and running. It is among the world’s largest and has been modified to accept drilling rigs and floating production, storage and offloading vessels (FPSOs). And the rigs are already using it.
“You know, there are 15 FPSOs in the North Sea and that number is growing. Like the rigs, they too are being asked to do things that they weren’t designed for, particularly the fitting of extra topsides equipment,” says MacGregor.
“We’re now seeing a market whereby they have to be taken off the fields they’re producing and be dry-docked. We’re doing our first FPSO in July next year and we have a further two really strong enquiries that we’re hopeful will become bookings.”
But FPSO owners have the pick of docks, so what is it that gives Global a competitive edge?
“I think it’s our topsides capability, not the doing of standard shipyard stuff that differentiates. Shipyards around Europe do not have that kind of experience; they don’t have our understanding of the oil and gas industry.
“It’s easier for Global to bring in shipwrighting skills, should they be needed than it is for a conventional shipyard to import more expensive and scarce oil and gas expertise of the kind we possess or have access to.
“You must also remember that most of the shipyards in Europe have changed as well. The days when there were 3,000-4,000 people in such places have gone. They operate with minimal core crewing and contract the various trades as necessary to do a job.”
What won’t happen is that Nigg will return to building integrated decks and large platform jackets; rather the emphasis will be on diverse engineering including the construction of sizeable modules for platforms, growing the subsea side, building renewable energy devices and so-forth.
Nigg also has the acreage to enable a total lay-down of all modules off a large North Sea platform that is being decommissioned. No other UK yard possesses the space to allow this.
And it has been made a local enterprise zone in its own right.
“Being a local, I was brought up with 25,000-tonne jackets and decks,” says MacGregor.
“But I’ve had to jettison that memory and listen to what today’s customer is saying. It could be a 600-tonne manifold for Quad 204; or a 3,000 tonnes topsides to put on to such and such a platform, or compression or accommodation module; or an FPSO owner wanting to drydock for overhaul because shipyards are able to deal with it in the way that they want; or it could be a rig operator who doesn’t really want to drag all the way to Holland, even though that’s where they’ve dry-docked in the past.”
In short, as North Sea infrastructure ages, so MacGregor sees nothing but opportunities to capitalise on. And that’s not counting overseas.
But he is clear that Global must continue to differentiate itself and at the heart of that is the workforce, where the staff contractor ration is the opposite of the oil and gas industry norm . . . 70% on the payroll, with trainees given a proper job and paid from day one.
“I think we have a major advantage in that, culturally, we’re quite different,” says MacGregor.
He thinks that, in the post-Macondo era where there is now an obsession about safety, for a company to have the bulk of its personnel on staff can be a distinct advantage.
“We believe that by actually having staff and being very committed to them, then we’ll be able to present the industry with a proposition that is very different to what the oil and gas industry has become accustomed to over the past 30-40 years.
“What we have to do is make sure that, with our model of at least 70:30 staff to contractor ratio, we can carry enough skills to be able to handle a varied workload effectively and to full customer satisfaction.
“But look at what we’re doing. We’re training our people. We don’t send them to college; they get fully trained on the job. They get paid from day one. Some will fail but by heavens many will succeed. And Scots have an innate ability to do that. But sometimes we just don’t believe in ourselves.”
Getting Global to where it is today hasn’t been a cakewalk, especially getting all parties around the table and agreeing a deal over Nigg. MacGregor could simply have walked away at any point during the five years of talks.
“Today I’m really glad that I fought so hard to make that happen, he says. “The market has really opened up. We’ve had top industry people from the UK and around the world looking at Nigg.”
In a sense the Global story is only just beginning.
o Questions and answers
Age: 59
Education: University, college, other RGIT, Aberdeen
The 2/3 main roles in career and dates: Chairman all my life
What has been the hardest decision you have made in business: Losing good people
Who do you admire in business? Bob Keiller – PSN
What do you regard as being your greatest success to date? Acquisition of Nigg
What do you do to relax? Play golf
Where is your favourite holiday destination? Tenerife
What is your favourite gadget? iPhone
What charity do you support? Archie Foundation for the children’s ward at Raigmore
If you were not in the job you are in, what job would you like? Doctor
Where would you like to retire to? I’m not going to retire