New management team is appointed at reborn H&W
former boss of a Canadian shipyard has been appointed managing director of Harland and Wolff in Belfast.
John Petticrew will lead the operation following its sale to infrastructure specialists InfraStrata plc after going into administration earlier this year.
Mr Petticrew is a former vice president of operations at Seaspan Shipyards in Vancouver.
The company has also appointed Paul Blake, who had worked in a shipyard in Bahrain, as operations director, while Stephen Mills and Mark Giles have been appointed sales directors.
A spokesman for H&W said: “The new team has significant technical and commercial experience of operating facilities similar to Harland and Wolff and of securing and delivering contracts in the energy infrastructure, ship repair and conversion, offshore, fabrication, defence and recycling sectors.”
InfraStrata said H&W was now working on the business’s first contract since finalising the takeover, carrying out work on the Seatruck Performance vessel. And talks over work in the future with Spanish ship company Navantia are also continuing.
Last week InfraStrata announced that a public consultation is to start into its bid for a marine licence on the coast near Larne.
The licence is required to carry out work on InfraStrata’s IsTHE landmagee Gas Storage Project. The company has said that staff at H&W will work on projects relating to the gas storage bid. John Wood, interim chairman and chief executive of InfraStrata,
said appointing the dedicated management team was “a significant milestone for InfraStrata”.
“Their combined experience of delivering and securing projects at large-scale fabrication facilities around the world means that our new business division is poised for an exciting period of growth,” he added.
“It also means that the board is well positioned to maintain its focus on our flagship Islandmagee Gas Storage Project. It was a pleasure to have been in the yard this weekend to witness the first docking since we acquired the facility on December 4.”