This achievement comes as a result of Fendercare Marine’s commitment to providing innovation and excellence for their customers as well as building an enviable reputation for first class customer service.
The company, originally called Fender Care Ltd, was established in 1988 in a small rural location in the heart of East Anglia. Originally its core business was the sale, hire and refurbishment of Yokohama fenders. Three years later, the company opened the first of many global bases to help supply Middle East countries during the first Gulf War.
In 1993, as the company expanded they relocated to their new Head Office in Seething, just a few miles south of Norwich, Norfolk where the company still resides today. From this base, they now control offices and stock hubs in Brazil, Australia, China, Nigeria, Angola, Ghana, India, Middle East and Singapore, as well as a global network of Agents and Distributors who have exclusive arrangements to sell their products. They have grown from a handful of staff to over 400 employees located worldwide.
Having built a reputation as a supplier of quality marine products – in particular Yokohama fenders – 1995 saw them take the bold step of entering the Ship-to-Ship (STS) market. Initially acting as a preferred contractor to Shell, Fendercare Marine’s STS operations involve transfers between vessels of any size with a variety of cargoes including crude oil, white and black products, LPG and LNG as well as bulk cargoes. This proved a very shrewd move as Fendercare Marine has now become the leading provider of third party ship-to-ship (STS) transfer services in the world.
In 2012 they transferred over 475 million barrels during almost 3,000 individual operations across the world from over 40 STS bases, compared with just 18 million barrels in 1995 when they first started STS transfers. Throughout this time, one thing Fendercare Marine is
particularly proud of is their exemplary safety record – not having had a single environmental incident since starting STS services in 1995.
Fendercare Marine build an enviable customer list over the last 25 years, from small independent traders to multi-national oil and gas conglomerates, as well as becoming suppliers to many of the worlds navies. Their sizable naval product portfolio began in 1999, when they first began supplying fenders to the Ministry of Defence in the UK. They won a five year contract worth $29 million to supply the US Navy, who called Fendercare Marine a “vital part of assuring our US submarine fleet’s mooring capabilities continue positively throughout the world.”
Part of the Fendercare Marine ethos seems to have become “if we don’t supply it now, we soon will.” Over the last few years, they have expanded their marine product and service range through judicious acquisition of well respected, quality brands, such as E.J.Bean, Turners Marine Trading and Hippo Marine. The purchase of surface preparation company Blastgreen in 2009 has opened new doors both inside and outside the marine sectors. The wet blasting service is used for cleaning in zoos, racetracks, graffiti removal, canal boats and on Britain’s roads. The load and stress monitoring company, Strainstall Marine became a subsidiary of Fendercare Marine last year, adding another string to the Fendercare Marine bow and further extending their reach into the offshore oil and gas markets.
A key milestone in Fendercare Marine’s history came in 2005 when they became a part of James Fisher and Sons plc, a leading service provider in all sectors of the marine industry and a specialist supplier of engineering services to the nuclear industry in the UK and abroad. This venture has allowed Fendercare Marine to access a wider range of services for their customers than ever before, resulting in extraordinary turnover growth from £15m to £150m in just seven years.
The additional resources and services that James Fisher and Sons plc brought helped Fendercare Marine take on their most ambitious project yet. In 2012, they took responsibility for the marine terminal of two oil fields in Angola, Africa as part of a £200M deal to provide turnkey marine terminal management services. The award of the contract marked a significant step forward in the development of their marine services business, demonstrating that they have the scale, technology, expertise and global reach to take on such complex operational challenges. As Fendercare Marine’s Group Business Development Director, Martin Dronfield, said “(this contract) represents a very real vote of confidence by the major international oil companies and licensing authorities that our unique approach offers an ideal balance of environmental awareness, safety, efficiency and sustainability.”
The offshore energy market has seen great changes over the last 25 years and Fendercare Marine have certainly been moving with the times. The unprecedented expansion of the global marine renewables sector saw them open their first wave and tidal support base in Lyness, Orkney in 2010. Never forgetting their local roots, this was soon followed by the launch of their first offshore wind turbine personnel support base in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.