Energy & Utilities
Solid foundations Global Project Services, based in northern Scotland, is an expert at delivering specialist welding, structural, mechanical and piping services to its multi-sector clients. Established some 20 years ago, the company has gradually increased its international presence. Romana Moares spoke with Managing Director Gavin MacDonald about the company’s unique capabilities, one of its flagship projects and emerging new business opportunities.
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lobal Project Services, a member of the Global Energy Group, a highly successful, award-winning energy sector service group, operates within the oil and gas industries onshore and offshore. It supports customers in the petrochemical, refinery, power station, nuclear, fabrication and LNG markets from new-build construction projects through to turnarounds and maintenance and upgrade programmes. “We are a specialist welding contractor, with core services ranging from welding engineering and metallurgy through to high-end specification, and from development of clients’ welding procedures through to actual welding work,” says Gavin MacDonald. “The key capability that distinguishes us from similar companies is our range of specialised welding methods – we work with clients to be able to understand their technical challenges, then develop the welding
specifications and look at potential different welding applications that are best suited for the job. The reason why we do this is that we try to challenge conventional welding methods with the aim of maintaining all our quality values while delivering cost-effective solutions for clients,” he says, explaining the company’s approach. The company applies manual welding processes, semi-automatic as well as fully automatic processes, and mainly works as a subcontractor to EPC companies (Engineering, Procurement and Construction contractors). Over the years, GPS has gathered a wealth of experience from major construction projects throughout the UK, Europe and Scandinavia on developments involving major operators such as Statoil, Shell, Hitachi, Dragon Oil, Petroplus, Lyondell, Esso and Exxon. “Demand for subcontracting particular services increased during the times when the oil & gas sector collapsed and a lot of large companies struggled to survive, getting rid of service providers in favour of lower-cost alternatives,” says Mr MacDonald. However, the scope of solutions that GPS offers has been applied in numerous projects in other sectors – the company has worked, for example, for the Ministry of Defence (submarines) and on infrastructure development projects (tunnelling), to name just two.
Growth in the north Mr MacDonald explains that one country that has been in focus in the last few years has been Norway. With its specialised welding services, GPS has supported several construction and maintenance projects as well as modification programmes. “We first entered the Norwegian market in 2004. What got us the work was our welding specialities. Companies recognised that we offered something more.” He makes no secret of the fact that Norway will remain an important market. With its production of two million barrels of oil per day, it is Europe’s largest oil producer. The decision made at the end of last year to develop the Castberg oil field in the Barents Sea sent an optimistic signal to the oil and gas sector. “We have always remained very close to the Norwegian market and have had some fantastic experience there, working for major companies within large construction programmes. In the last few years, when the pound was very strong, it was very difficult for a UK company to set up a foreign subsidiary. Although the solutions may have been great, their price was just too high to compete. Whatever one may think of the recent political development from the personal point of view, a Industry Europe 79
