Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Limited is a shipbuilding company whose yard, located in Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, was established in 1903. It is the last remaining shipbuilder on the lower Clyde and is currently the only builder of merchant ships on the river. For some years the company's mainstay has been Roll-on/roll-off ferries, primarily for Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac), including a series of innovative hybrid diesel-electric/battery-powered vessels. Beset with difficulties since 2018 over their latest two CalMac ferries, Fergusons' largest ever vessel, the shipyard was nationalised in December 2019. It is now classified as an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government.
History
The Ferguson shipyard was founded as a partnership by four Ferguson Brothers (Peter, Daniel, Louis and Robert) who left the Fleming & Ferguson shipyard in Paisley to lease the Newark yard in Port Glasgow in March 1903. Ferguson Brothers acquired the freehold in the yard in 1907 and was incorporated as Ferguson Brothers (Port Glasgow) Ltd in 1912. The company was purchased by John Slater Ltd (Amalgamated Industries) in 1918 but returned to control of the Ferguson family in the late 1920s. Lithgows Ltd purchased an interest in the business after Bobby Ferguson's death in 1954 and took control of the Company in 1961. Ferguson Brothers remained a separate entity within the Scott Lithgow group from 1969 to 1977.
The company was nationalised and subsumed into British Shipbuilders in 1977, then merged with the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company to form Ferguson-Ailsa Ltd in 1980.
Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd
Ferguson and Ailsa were separated in 1986 when the latter yard was sold and Ferguson was merged with Appledore Shipbuilders in Devon to form Appledore Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd. By the late 1980s only the Appledore Ferguson yards were still held in state ownership. Ferguson was demerged from Appledore and acquired by Greenock-based engineering firm Clark Kincaid in 1989 then started trading as Ferguson Shipbuilders.
Clark Kincaid itself was acquired by Kvaerner and became Kvaerner Kincaid in 1990, and the Ferguson yard sold to Ferguson Marine plc in 1991. The entire shareholding in Ferguson Marine was acquired by the Holland House Electrical Group in 1995. The sign above the main gate continued the name Ferguson Shipbuilders Limited. Between 2013 and 2016 the yard built three hybrid diesel-electric/battery powered ferries, beginning with Hallaig - the world's first.
Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd.
In August 2014, the shipyard placed the company into administration and the following month Clyde Blowers Capital, an industrial company owned by Jim McColl, purchased the yard for £600,000 and renamed it Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd (FMEL).
In August 2015, government-owned Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) announced that an order for two ferries for Caledonian MacBrayne service, capable of operating on either marine diesel oil or liquefied natural gas, had been won by Fergusons. Originally intended for delivery during 2018, construction difficulties (the reasons for which are in dispute) led to a two-year delay for the first ship, Glen Sannox, which was launched in November 2017.
FMEL was part of two consortia's bids for the programme for five type 31 frigates for the Royal Navy, worth some £1.25 billion. The consortia are those led by Babcock International and Atlas Elektronik UK. After their bid was selected, a contract was formally awarded to Babcock Group on 15 November 2019, for an average production cost of £250 million per ship and an overall programme cost set to be £2 billion.
On 30 October 2018, FMEL secured a contract to construct a large air cushioned barge for Mangistau ACV Solutions Ltd, part of the CMI Offshore Ltd Group, with estimated completion scheduled in 2019. In December 2018 FMEL announced that two orders worth £5.4 million had been secured from Inverlussa Marine Services for fish farm support ships, to be completed in May 2019, and that three more for fishing vessels, totaling £11 million, were in the pipeline. By July 2019 the ferry dispute had led to delays in closing the trawler contracts.