Interview: Port of Aberdeen boss Bob Sanguinetti on hub's role of 'national importance'

Bob Sanguinetti, chief executive of Port of Aberdeen, looks at the organisation’s progress to date and his view ahead from the crow’s nest as he approaches two years in the role.

The executive has since September 2021 held the title at the historic hub that dates back to 1163 and says it has the largest berthage in Scotland. It in May announced that it returned to pre-pandemic levels of activity in 2022, a full year ahead of forecast, upping turnover by nearly a fifth to £39.2 million, while vessel arrival numbers grew 12 per cent to surpass 6,800, and more than 27.7 million tonnes of vessels and goods moved through the port.

Mr Sanguinetti praises this progress, while when it comes to citing memorable moments from his tenure so far, he has two in mind. The first is when the port welcomed the first ship into its South Harbour development (while part was still under construction, with the site set for its official inauguration later this year) in July 2022. “And that then led to one ship becoming two ships, two ships becoming three ships, and so on.”

The second came in April of this year when the firm won the Business of the Year prize at the Northern Star Business Awards, which he sees as “very worthy recognition of the tremendous work that the team has put into both building a new harbour, the biggest marine infrastructure project in the UK, whilst at the same time running a very busy operational harbour”.

'I'm passionate about the key role that shipping plays in just about every facet of our lives,' says the Port of Aberdeen CEO. Picture: contributed.

Port of Aberdeen says the South Harbour is the most ambitious development for trade around the North Sea – with Mr Sanguinetti saying the “transformational” project will boost its quayside capacity by a quarter and treble its deepwater berths. And he acknowledges that it is behind the original schedule, having been mooted originally to open in 2020, but weighed down by contractual issues early on in the project, with Covid then slowing things further.

Contribution

The completion of the final stretch of quayside is imminent, with the £400 million-plus South Harbour as a whole expected to be fully operational in the late summer of this year, and will help the hub “to support an even greater number of jobs and increase our contribution to the national economy even more”.

The CEO previously held the same title at the UK Chamber of Shipping, and before that at Gibraltar Port Authority, having previously spent more than two decades in the Royal Navy. It seems like the sea has really been his “office” across his career? “Absolutely,” he states. “I grew up in Gibraltar, where I spent most of my upbringing either on or in the water. And that stayed with me throughout my career. I'm passionate about the key role that shipping plays in just about every facet of our lives. Whether it's the food, the clothes that we buy in shops, the energy that we use at home or in driving our cars, there is likely to be a maritime or shipping link to that at some stage of the cycle.”

Port of Aberdeen in May welcoming the 202-metre-long AIDAaura, and it expects such cruise activity to grow at a rate of knots. Picture: Derek Ironside/Newsline Media.

Global maritime trade is expected to grow by 2.1 per cent a year between 2023 and 2027, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Mr Sanguinetti also stresses Port of Aberdeen’s eco credentials, announcing in April of this year that it was set to invest £55m to help become the UK’s first net-zero port by 2040. “We’re seeing massive, significant opportunities for growth in energy transition, including oil and gas, decommissioning, and renewables – and offshore wind in particular,” he says now.”

Yet the issue of the energy transition has proved controversial, with concern from some about a suggested ban on future oil and gas licences, for example. The Port of Aberdeen boss says there needs to be a “more balanced approach to the transition piece – if we don't get this right, we will see a reduction in the size of the skilled workforce in Aberdeenshire that's been built up over the last 50 years before the renewable skills base gathers sufficient momentum… we need to ensure that we have sufficient energy resources can meet our own needs”.

Pivoting

He adds that oil and gas has historically been the port’s “bread and butter”, and still contributes significantly to turnover, but now more than a tenth of all its vessel traffic today, is related to renewable energy, and “that percentage is set to continue to grow year on year".

Port of Aberdeen has been increasing its handling of general cargo and its tourism activity, having in May welcomed the 202-metre-long AIDAaura that arrived from Hamburg, Germany, for a full day visit as part of a Scottish cruise.

And the Granite City hub is expecting more than 40 cruise ships this year, up from 25 in 2022, and bringing just shy of 30,000 passengers into the region. “We expect to see that grow... we are predicting that by 2030, we will be welcoming in the region of 150 cruise ships, bringing 125,000 passengers to the region, so there is a big opportunity there.” It will also be a stop-off in The Tall Ships Races 2025, “which will allow us to further strengthen the link between the maritime sector and the city of Aberdeen”.

The businessman says he has settled in well to the region himself, and in terms of picking up the local lingo (in addition to being a fluent Spanish speaker), "my Doric is not coming along as quickly as I'd wanted to… but it's on my list of things to do”.

Lastly, he stresses that Ports of Aberdeen’s team is only 110 strong, “but we enable and we contribute directly to 12,000 jobs, and more widely in terms of the [social and economic] impact that we have... in Aberdeen and in the region more widely, if not nationally [too]… it is a piece of infrastructure of national importance”.