Resolve Marine sells its Gibraltar towing ops to Boluda
Written by Nick Blenkey
Assets acquired by Boluda include the tugs Elliot, Hercules, Rooke, and Wellington. [Photo: Boluda]
Fort Lauderdale, Fla., headquartered Resolve Marine has announced the sale of its Gibraltar operations. Two divisions are part of the sale: the company’s harbor towing operations and fleet were sold to Valencia, Spain, headquartered Boluda Towage Europe, and the marine services business to Elias Tapiero of ORC Marine. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“The Port of Gibraltar operations have been part of the Resolve Marine family since 2015,” said Joseph Farrell III, deputy CEO of Resolve Marine. “We are excited that Boluda Towage Europe saw the enormous value of a business that serves the Port of Gibraltar, adding to its portfolio of towage services in major global ports.”
Boluda Towage, a division of Boluda Corporación Marítima that focuses its activity on port, coastal, and offshore towage, as well as maritime salvage, said that with the acquisition of Resolve Salvage and Fire (Gibraltar) Ltd it is continuing its expansion process in the international market and strengthening its presence in a strategic point for maritime transport, the Strait of Gibraltar. With the acquisition, Boluda Towage adds the tugs Elliot, Hercules, Rooke, and Wellington to its fleet. This increases its service and support potential and capacity in the Strait, where it has been operating for many years on both sides of the strait; in Cadiz, Algeciras, and Gibraltar on the European side and in Ceuta and Tangier on the North African coast.
RED SEA DEVELOPMENTS SEND MORE SHIPS THROUGH STRAIT
Boluda notes that, following the latest events in the Red Sea, the ports in the Strait of Gibraltar will be the first in Europe to be touched by the shipping lines now sailing the Cape of Good Hope route and will be a key point on the trade routes between Europe and Asia.
With a length of 42 miles and a width at its narrowest point of only nine miles, the Strait of Gibraltar is already one of the areas with the highest navigation density in the world. The conditions in the area, with strong and variable tides, powerful easterly and westerly winds, and frequent fog banks due to the high temperatures, make tugboats essential for the optimization of operations.
