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NICO International join forces with Global Boiler

NICO International join forces with Global Boiler
Dubai marine and industrial engineering firm NICO International has combined its skilled “blue collar” workforce with the “white collar” nous of Danish company Global Boiler in a joint venture that is already benefitting the vast Arabian Gulf fleet. 

The alliance will offer boiler maintenance, repair and operation services across the Middle East, strengthening NICO’s position as one of the region’s foremost maritime solutions providers while supplementing the innovation Global Boiler has already demonstrated at its Denmark HQ and in Singapore.

“Considering the market trends and NICO’s vision of being the best marine and industrial solutions provider, this partnership with Global Boiler is a significant step for NICO in becoming an even more attractive market player,” said NICO gm John McFadyen.

Global Boiler set up in Dubai three years ago as a pivot between its European and the Far East operations but has until now not sought work in the Middle East. Technical director Michael Søndergaard sees “very good prospects” in the region.

“NICO have a well trained staff with the blue collars and the intention is we should supply the white collars. We can supplement each other well,” Søndergaard said.

“Now we have the manpower base with local guys who can freely go in and out of the shipyards, they are already registered, they have their local welding certificates, the safety courses, everything, it makes things are lot easier. Today we are having the signing ceremony but we have already had people on jobs and so far it is very successful.”

McFadyen is an instant advocate after a recent project on LNG vessels at Dubai Drydocks. Global Boiler oversaw the assembly of 500 tubes in cassettes in the controlled environment of a NICO workshop whereas the work had previously been done on board in cramped conditions not always conducive to perfect welds.

“We did two complete re-tubings on the NGS Co. vessels in Dubai Drydocks with an innovative idea that Global Boiler have with the tubes being intersects. We had never used that technology before and it saved us an awful lot of time, an awful lot of welding and the [associated] possibility of failures,” McFadyen said.

“It saved us a lot of time, money and energy and proved to be extremely successful with the client who is probably our biggest client in the area currently.”

Acquired by Chalmers Engineering nine months ago and valued at around $150m, NICO's now 2600-strong workforce has entered its fifth decade offering riding squads, afloat repairs and dry-docking and a wide range of associated services across the Middle East.