Five vessels caught up in Buckie administration

Buckie Shipyard Ltd, which is owned by the Lithgow Group, called in the administrators and the business is to be wound down and the assets sold off. Sixty four Buckie staff have been made redundant with immediate effect, the remaining six will help with the wind-down.

Unfortunately, Mainprize Offshore still had two vessels under construction at the yard when it went into administration. The 25m MO1 is nearly complete but had been running behind schedule by 12 weeks when the yard went into administration.

Bob Mainprize, managing director, Mainprize Offshore, told Maritime Journal that the first he knew of the troubles was when he was called in by Buckie management with the administrator.

“We heard nothing from the Lithgow Group at all. The situation has not been handled well, we were one of Buckie’s largest customers and had spent around £5m at the yard over the last few years, therefore we should have been treated better and given the chance to renegotiate our contact with them.”

Mainprize now wants to project manage the rest of the build under its own steam with former Buckie employees, contractors and suppliers helping out. Mr Mainprize said that he hopes it would be possible to complete the vessel in situ.

The yard had been contracted to a complete the second vessel, the MO2 by June 2014 – but this was never started.

The MO1 should have been making Mainprize around £3500 per day in charter, but as it’s now around seven months late being launched it’s incurring the company considerable losses.

Mainprize says it’s lucky in the respect that it has understanding clients and great support from its finance team, contractors and suppliers, which include Hercules Hydraulics, MAP, Seaking Electrical, Halyard, Macduff Shipyard, Clements Marine and many others.

But it wasn’t just Mainprize that was affected. Turbine Transfers, part of Holyhead Towing Company, also has two unfinished vessels at the yard – one is 80% and one is 40% complete. Hazel Phillips, commercial manager, said to MJ: “This came as a complete surprise but we’re dealing with the issue and talking to the administrators about what to do next.”

A spokesman for joint administrators, RSM Tenon, confirmed to MJ that there are still five boats in the Buckie yard, three of which are under construction and the other two in for repair or modification.

“The joint administrators have retained a small number of staff to deal with the two boats with modification, whilst the other three will be either transported elsewhere, completed on site using another contractor, or by the customers engaging some of the staff directly to complete the works. The administrators will not be completing the construction of the three boats”, they said.

The problem is that no-one knows why a yard that was turning over around £3m and had diversified into the offshore renewables market, went into administration at all.

The official line is that the administration was caused by severe cash flow problems resulting from unsustainable costs, reduced demand and intensive price led competition. But the word on the street is that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes.

Both Mainprize and Turbine Transfers have so far been unable to reach an agreement with the administrators.

Meanwhile, the administrators have allegedly received several bids for the yard from shipbuilding concerns and also concerns interested in acquiring the land.