Fendercare Marine Celebrates Silver Jubilee

Fendercare Marine, one of the world’s foremost suppliers of marine products and services, announced that it is celebrating 25 years of trading in 2013. 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.

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

One of the keys to Fendercare Marine’s success has been their strong leadership team. Their current Managing Director, Eric Plane, joined Fendercare Marine in 1995 and has been their MD since 1997.

“Fendercare Marine is the company it now is because of the can do attitude it uses everyday” said Eric. “This applies to opening an STS base in maybe hostile territory where others would think twice or simply going the extra mile for a client in a variety of ways. We pride ourselves on our customer service whether that is in Australia, Brazil, Africa or the UK.”

So what does the future hold for Fendercare Marine? It seems that there are no plans to rest on their laurels. The Angola turnkey project continues apace; oil and gas opportunities in East Africa and the Falkland Islands are being explored; contracts to fulfil with (amongst others) the US Navy and plans for further renewable energy support bases around the UK in 2013.

Looking to the future, Eric said: “We are constantly trying to widen our appeal to our customers and the fact that a customer who simply used us for an STS operation in 2007 can now ask us to manage an offshore terminal or to change out an SBM bears testament to that.”

“Our ambition is to ensure that Fendercare Marine is the “go to” name on our client’s lists regardless of what the issue or requirement may be. We want to be able to take what started as a tiny company founded 25 years ago in a back bedroom and turn it into a truly global marine services provider without losing our roots, our ethos and our passion for business.”

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Press release, July 5, 2013