In the wake of the acquisition of the majority shareholding of Tug Malta Ltd last July, Rimorchiatori Riuniti Group is looking to the future with confidence, investing €70 million (Lm30.05 million) in three vessels and adopting a vision of making Malta a hub of shipping-related services in the Mediterranean region.
The group's managing director, Gregorio Gavarone, spoke about the group's vision of developing its services in the Mediterranean using Malta as a base for such operations. He also spoke about the group's plans with regard to human resources.
It was the group's policy to preferably employ local personnel in management and other technical posts both onshore and afloat. However, in order to do so, the company needed qualified personnel with the requisite certification as demanded by international standards.
Mr Gavarone said that on taking over Tug Malta, the group found a "properly-managed company" with employees who have a "great degree of professionalism in harbour towage but without the necessary qualifications and certification to perform operations outside territorial waters and in offshore activities".
It is therefore the group's primary challenge to improve, on a voluntary basis, the qualifications and certification of Tug Malta employees and to be able to recruit qualified personnel in order to form a team of Maltese seafarers with the aim of employing them on the offshore vessels under construction.
The group will be pleased to cooperate with the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology and other Maltese organisations to create a centre of excellence that is in line with the island's maritime vocation.
Group president Giovanni Delle Piane announced that the group had ordered a new anchor handling supply vessel from a Spanish shipyard in Valencia. The vessel, designed by Moss Maritime, one of Norway's leading naval architects, will be delivered to the company in March 2010, with an investment of €20 million (Lm8.59 million). The project will be financed by an Italian bank with the possibility of pooling by a local bank.
Dr Delle Piane said this is the third vessel being ordered by the group since its acquisition of Tug Malta. He also mentioned the tug ordered last September which, with an investment of €10.3 million (Lm4.42 million), will be delivered by the end of this year and another anchor handling supply vessel that will be delivered by April 2010. This vessel, the largest of its kind, required an investment of €42 million (Lm18.03 million).
He said these investments plus the initial investment to purchase the shares bring the total investment so far up to the €100 (Lm42.93) million mark.
Communications and National Projects Minister Austin Gatt said the amount being invested so far by the Rimorchiatori Uniti Group is way beyond the €22 million (Lm9.44 million) promised in the contractual agreement. This investment is helping make Malta a centre of excellence in maritime affairs. He also commented on the group's efforts to train the Tug Malta employees and promised the government's help to assist the group to find the right people while keeping bureaucracy to a bare minimum.