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Having spent the past five years building infrastructure, Teesside logistics giant AV Dawson is in business development mode, says managing director, Gary Dawson. New warehousing, infrastructure, land and equipment are all in place. “What we’re now doing is looking at the business more strategically, recruiting in a number of key areas and developing some changes within the company,” he says. We have a full time human


resources manager now – we’ve 240 people working for the organisation – and we’re currently looking for drivers and fitters. Recruitment can be an issue for us, as it is for everyone on Teesside, so we are developing relationships with local educational establishments and we’re running more apprenticeship schemes. Plus we’re also improving our focus on the safety of our people –we now have ISO accreditation, which is important when you’re working with blue chip clients.” AV Dawson owns a large


chunk of the Tees river frontage in Middlesbrough, along with a major rail freight terminal and new warehousing, plus a purpose-built steel terminal. Along with the port of Tees and Hartlepool, AV Dawson dominate logistics on Teesside. It hasn’t all been though.


straightforward,


Gary Dawson continues: “Our quaysides are busy, but the oil and gas business has taken a dive here, as it has everywhere else. The industry has put most new projects on hold for 12 months, and while we’re confident they’ll return, we have to ensure our operations remain busy in the meantime.” AV Dawson has meanwhile on


taken some for a short-term


“opportunist” business – for example, a temporary storage contract


furniture


manufacturer and another for a fishmeal producer. While the company’s policy is primarily to concentrate on storage related to business across its quayside, Gary Dawson is quite happy to build relationships with a diverse customer range. “It’s a different business model, but it fully reflects our flexibility to take advantage of opportunities as they arise.”


Other new business includes


converting a crane-equipped warehouse into a bulk store for weatherproof storage of polyhalite fertiliser. The customer is further developing its mining activities in North Yorkshire and has already started polyhalite production. Meanwhile, there are signs of


a recovery in oil prices, which should feed through into an upturn in offshore work. “We are seeing chinks of light at the end of the tunnel, although prices are unlikely to recover to those levels seen in the recent past anytime soon” says Gary Dawson. AV Dawson has built up


a cluster of subsea service companies at its Middlesbrough site,


including marine asset


specialist Prysmian and Modus Seabed Intervention who use underwater vehicle systems for subsea repair and maintenance, “It’s good business for us, because it also leads to opportunities for vessel mobilisation and demobilisation, and business for our sister company ships agents Cockfield Knight & Co.” Cockfield Knight, headed by


Richard Booth, recently recruited Craig Rowley to further develop its ship chartering activities. In fact, Cockfield Knight can provide a complete package to customers, including freight forwarding and ship charter, as well as traditional ship’s agency work. The most noticeable feature


of the AV Dawson estate is the massive fabrication halls. Traditionally these have been used for large offshore structures such as accommodations and topsides for oil and gas rigs. This tradition continues today with MTE, an offshore fabrication specialist, currently renting one of the halls and plans to expand into the rest of the huge structure before the end of the year. AV Dawson is supporting


further fabrication work in the region through its relationship with suppliers to Saudi-based SABIC which rents part of the North Sea Supply Base the site as part of its steel pipe fabrication works. Other activity at the site export


includes ships of from scrap


metal – offcuts from the local car manufacturers – in either chartered


the


quayside or in containers via road and rail. In similar vein,


another export is blast furnace slag from the local steel industry, used as a cement substitute in concrete. Gary Dawson says: “We have a


very diverse business here – no one side of things dominates – which is nice as it makes us more resilient.” A further development is AV


Dawson’s purchase, nine months ago, of eight acres of adjacent land from Middlesbrough Council. Following remediation work, and branded Ironmasters Park, it will provide secure storage for all non-quayside related work. “Our quayside space is very valuable,” Gary Dawson explains. “It is our intention to relocate some non- dependant activities away from the quay to better structure this space for our customers who utilise the quayside regularly.” Another major development the


within past year is the


securing of a 99-year lease on Middlesbrough Goods Yard from Network Rail, believed to be the first such deal not involving one of the main rail freight operators. The yard in turn feeds AV Dawson’s 80-acre rail-connected site, and is in the process of being refettled and upgraded to allow it take longer trains without the need for splitting. In one particular steel flow, it has also dramatically cut rail wagon turn- round time from 24 to no more than four hours. Adjacent to this is what arguably the jewel


is in AV


Dawson’s crown, the automotive steel store, opened in February. This is now handling not only steel coil, but also plate and soon the steel train will also bring in


liquid tar in tanktainers, another by-product, from steel maker Tata’s coke ovens. At the moment, the train operates three days a week but the hope is that it will soon go up to four. The steel shed has a storage capacity of 50,000


tonnes at any one time, although it is handling an increasing amount of high quality steel, which comes in smaller coils and cannot be stacked. Yet another diversification is the anaerobic digestion plant,


Issue 6 2015 - Freight Business Journal


Multimodal specialist means business


25


which makes gas and hence electricity from food waste, collected from the local area. Along with ground heating and solar panels on the new steel store – which recently won an architectural award – it will help keep AV Dawson’s energy bills to a minimum and offset carbon emissions. The site also offers full and


empty container storage, along with a container stuffing service. It’s a lower cost alternative to the port, which understandably wants to move boxes out of its operational area. Teesside is gaining a reputation


as a waste reprocessing area, and while it is a pretty unglamorous activity, it is a mighty profitable one. “We’ve had spoil brought in by train from the Crossrail construction in London


for


disposal at specialist local sites, for instance, and believe this is an area which has real potential for the future,” says Gary Dawson.


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