10:58am Tuesday 2nd March 2010
Billingham-based Global Anodes is acquiring a worldwide reputation in the competitive marine engineering sector. For this month’s success feature, in conjunction with the North-East Chamber of Commerce, Lindsay Parker speaks to its technical director, Andy Hatton.
ANDY HATTON is about to fly to Plymouth for a consultancy meeting with a client. The client called the meeting only a few hours earlier, but the technical director of marine engineering firm Global Anodes is already on his way to Newcastle airport to offer his expertise on a piece of anticorrosion equipment.
“I think one of our strengths is that we are flexible and can respond very quickly when a client needs us,” he says. “Today it’s Plymouth, but it could equally be Germany. We’ve even flown to Hawaii at the last minute – unfortunately, I spent ten days in a dry dock rather than enjoying the beach.
“What we say to people is give us your problem. Generally speaking, if everyone else is running away from it, we’ll be running towards it.”
Global Anodes is fast gaining a world-wide reputation in the competitive and highlyspecialised marine engineering industry.
Based in Billingham, near Stockton, the firm supplies solutions to corrosion and biofouling in the marine, offshore and industrial sectors. It provides equipment, services and design consultancy for marine vessels, ranging from small fishing boats to supertankers and installations, such as jetties and harbours, industrial applications involving land-based steel and concrete structures, and fixed offshore installations.
Mr Hatton puts it simply.
“Basically, we stop things from going rusty,” he says.
Global Anodes was set up by Mr Hatton and production director Jon Hudson in June 2007.
In its first year of trading, it was a finalist in the 2008 NE Business Awards Newcomer of the Year category and last year it was named as New Exporter of the Year in the North-East Exporters’ Awards.
“From day one we were set up as an exporter because our first clients were abroad and we didn’t have any in the UK,” says Mr Hatton, who trained as a marine engineer in the Army before working for a corrosion engineering company in the North-East.
“For anything that’s made of steel that people put into sea water, we can help prevent the inevitable from happening.”
One area of their work is to combat bio-fouling. An example is when ships or oil platforms use sea water to keep their engineering systems cool, or for use in their firefighting systems.
“The problem when you suck in sea water is what else gets sucked in with it,” says Mr Hatton.
“Large diameter pipes can get filled with sea life, from mussels to shellfish, which reduces the amount of water coming through.
It can result in an increase in temperature if the coolant system isn’t working properly, or can be quite drastic if you’re needing the water to put out a fire and you find the pipe is full of barnacles.”
To prevent the bio-fouling, the company uses copper anodes in the flow of water which, once electricity has passed through them, results in the anodes dissolving and releasing charged ions.
“These are unpleasant to marine organisms and deter them from settling,” says Mr Hatton.
The company can be called on by a project manager working on a multi-million pound offshore platform who is looking for anticorrosive measures for the build, right the way to the owner of a small fishing boat.
“Anything that’s made out of steel we get involved in,” says Mr Hatton. “One of the biggest challenges we face is about educating people. Rust is a very slow and insidious process and it’s far better to act to prevent it than have people coming to us when they have a bad corrosion problem.”
As with bio-fouling, anodes – some made from zinc or aluminium, others coated in platinum or mixed metal oxides – are fitted to the steel structures before electrical currents are passed through.
The electrical current is often attached to a power unit which can be operated by staff on board ships or offshore oil platforms. It can protect against even aggressive corrosion.
“The systems are extremely hardwearing and provide automatic monitoring for continuous protection,” says Mr Hatton.
The company also carries out corrosion surveys, repairs and replacements for worn parts. The products it supplies include ventilators and fans, submersible pumps and transformers.
Throughout its three years, Global Anodes has continued to find that most of its business has come from abroad – 98 per cent in its first year – with the bulk of its work in Europe, Scandinavia and North America.
A key target area has been China and Mr Hatton has worked hard to forge links in East Asia, travelling on numerous trade missions. He found last year’s trade visit to the Chinese city of Harbin, where the North-East Chamber of Commerce signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Harbin’s General Chamber of Commerce, a particularly useful meeting, not only meeting potential Chinese clients, but also British contacts.
“China has one of the world’s fastest growing economies and this is reflected in its shipbuilding and oil and gas industries. But it can take a long time to get a foot in the door,”
says Mr Hatton. “You have to build up sincere relationships with people over there and it can take a long time even to get to the point where you’re tendering for business.
“Being able to visit China regularly has meant that we have gained insights and knowledge of the culture and business ethos of the market there. We’ve signed several contracts over there as a result.
“UK Trade and investment (UKTI) has given us an awful lot of support, which has enabled us to get in front of the Chinese and we’ve found the North-East Chamber of Commerce to be really helpful, particularly their international trade team. We’ve also used their excellent letter of credit service.”
Mr Hatton also finds the smaller touches help when trying to win new business abroad.
“We go overseas to trade shows and everyone else has their brochures and catalogues in English. Whenever we go abroad we always convert our literature into the language of the country we are in,” he says.
ANOTHER fast growing market for the company is the renewables sector, where the bases supporting offshore wind farms are not unlike those required for the offshore oil industry, which need anti-corrosion work. Brazil and South America is also a target market.
“There are a lot of developments in the offshore oil and gas industry in Brazil and South America, which we want to take advantage of,” says Mr Hatton. “And we have been fortunate to be included in UKTI’s Horizons programme.”
Global Anodes is also keen to support the community in Teesside and has sponsored events such as young entrepreneur competitions and an exhibition by local art students that was held in its building in Billingham Green, last year.
Mr Hatton has acted as the business representative on the Billingham Partnership Board for the past two years and has been involved with the Prince’s Trust mentoring scheme.
“I feel that it’s really important to give something back,” he says.
“Young people represent the future of business in the area and we all have a responsibility to inspire them in this direction.”
Like many small businesses, Global Anodes has not been immune to the effects of the recession.
“We were only a year old when the recession started to make itself felt,” says Mr Hatton. “The thing with corrosion is that it’s a very slow process and if people are tightening their belts they can put off their corrosion issues for months.
“Having said that, in the past 18 months we have increased our client base by six fold and we’re getting inquiries from companies that we’ve never heard of. One of the interesting side effects of the recession has been that companies have started to shop around and people are finding that we offer quality, expertise and a customer-led service.
“Another aspect that has helped us is our diverse marketplace. We have clients in so many countries that if one market is not doing well, chances are that another will be.”
What Mr Hatton would like to see is more help for small businesses during a tough economic climate, such as easier access to funding. He feels that while the Government has given more funding towards investment for businesses, it is still difficult to access.
The company employs three people, including accounts manager Sue O’Hagan. It also has a network of engineers across the world. Clients are usually in the form of agents or project managers and also the end users of their products, such as shipping companies.
It means that Andy is often used for his design and consultancy expertise, hence being asked to fly across the world at a moment’s notice. But this is one of the unique selling points of the business, he says.
“We really want to expand the company, we don’t want to be just a small business,” he says.
“Ultimately, we want to be employing 25 to 30 people doing design and consultancy work for the marine and offshore sectors around the world. That’s what we’re aiming for and what we hope to achieve over the next few years.
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