Towing power across the Americas

SAAM TOWAGE I PROFILE

power Towing across the Americas

With substantial assets and robust operational capacity spread throughout the Americas, SAAM Towage is the region’s largest and most important provider of expert maritime towage services.

Thanks to its constant focus on evolution, customer service and careful reinvestment, the company has enjoyed ongoing organic and inorganic growth for the past 20 years. Hernán Gómez, SAAM Towage Managing Director, discussed the company’s growth strategies and vision with Richard Hagan.

Beginning life in 1961 as a subsidiary of shipping line CSAV, SAAM’s present form came into focus 50 years later in the early 2010s when it was spun off from its parent and became a fully independent, publicly traded company.

A modern tugboat service provider

SAAM Towage provides cargo and terminal towage operations across the Americas, with an operational and asset footprint spanning from Chile to Canada. Customers include all the large liner companies, as well as numerous large oil and gas companies and many large port authorities.

The company’s services include both the terminal and harbour towage segments and also special services. Harbour towage refers to the services provided by its tugboats to ships that are traditionally from the container shipping lines and other shipowners and customers. For this service category, SAAM Towage would typically have several vessels deployed in any given port, and within the port, they’ll assist these large vessels with berthing and unberthing manoeuvres.

The second category, terminal towage, sees SAAM Towage establish direct contractual relationships between itself and a terminal project. In terms of these agreements, SAAM Towage would provide dedicated towage services for the berthing and unberthing of vessels calling a particular terminal for a longer duration, but generally on a lower frequency basis than those provided as part of a harbour towage agreement.

Tugs provided in terms of terminal towage contracts are generally required to meet high safety standards, especially relating to firefighting capability and overall response to emergencies capabilities.

Towing throughout the Americas

Altogether, SAAM Towage owns over 180 modern tugboats that are crewed and managed by a staff complement of almost 2,000 people. Of those, the bulk of its staff – about 80% – are seafarers and 20% are onshore personnel.

The company follows a careful strategy of ongoing reinvestment in its vessels. Of its fleet of 180 vessels, 35 have been added to the fleet since 2015. Since 2010, the company has added a minimum of two or three vessels to its portfolio each year. SAAM Towage’s latest vessel, the 29m Mataquito II, features 82 tonnes of bollard pull and constant tension and was delivered to SAAM Towage in May 2022.

Thanks to this large and growing asset portfolio of modern, capable tugs, SAAM Towage is able to handle a wide spectrum of vessels, including large container ships, ro-ro ships, oil, chemical and LNG tankers as well as bulk carriers, reefer ships and general cargo vessels.

SAAM TOWAGE I PROFILE

The company is headquartered in Santiago, Chile, while its fleet is operational throughout South and Central America and also in Canada where it has a long-term presence in British Columbia. Its physical footprint is also impressive, with offices in Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Uruguay. Of those, SAAM Towage’s biggest and busiest territory is Brazil, where it currently operates 51 tugs and provides services in almost every port in the country.

“SAAM Towage’s leadership, with the largest fleet of tugboats in the Americas and highly specialized crews, is at the service of foreign trade,” said SAAM Towage Managing Director Hernán Gómez.

Pushing partnerships and growth

In recent years, SAAM Towage has enjoyed strong, sustained growth, particularly in the five years between 2017 and 2022. Its growth strategy comprises a combination of organic growth, acquisitions and the creation of new companies to service its customers’ needs in new countries.

To ensure that all of these moving parts remain united, the company has recently invested in some impressive new collaboration processes.

“We’ve invested in a lot of work around our operational processes,” said Mr Gómez. “One project will standardise our maintenance, procurement and operational processes across all of our operations, including invoicing. Building this new system has taken us just over two years and will ensure that we have all of our companies running on the same systems. It’s central to our strategy.”

He added: “We believe the cost-efficiency and operational smoothness that we gain from this project will keep us competitive and that it will attract future growth. It’s a very transformational internal project with a lot of implications for us.”

Strategic partnerships and fleet reinvestments feature prominently in the company’s growth strategy as well. Conversely, careful financial management is equally important.

“We invest with a long-term view in our fleet, and we maintain partnerships with shipyards and equipment providers which have all put us in a very good place,” Mr Gómez confirmed. “We have a very strong balance sheet that allows us the flexibility, in this capital-intensive industry, to pursue growth opportunities when they arise.”

“All of this gives both existing and potential clients the peace of mind that we’re a reliable company that will be there to service our contracts and agreements.”

Developing a sustainable future

The shipping sector has increasingly been targeted globally for emissions reduction measures as part of worldwide global warming reduction efforts. SAAM Towage is alive to its responsibilities in terms of emissions reductions and as Mr Gómez highlighted, the company wants to be an industry leader in terms of its own efforts.

“We have a relevant position in the market in our region and we want to be a driving force in environmental responsibility trends. We have a corporate environmental strategy in terms of which the next few years will be about ensuring that we make progress around the indicators we’ve identified and that we start investing in alternative propulsion solutions.

“We expect to see some news in 2022 about the changes we will be making in our fleet, but it’ll be a gradual process,” he continued. “We’ve already invested in initiatives to reduce fuel consumption across the fleet, and now we’re starting to work on alternative propulsion. We’re well-equipped to manage that process.”

Opportunity blowing in the wind

SAAM Towage is eyeing new growth opportunities further afield, beyond its traditional markets. One of these is the rapidly growing windfarm market.

Meanwhile, in early April 2022, the company announced its acquisition of Standard Towing in Canada which will provide it with three new tugboats. Simultaneously, it welcomed a new tugboat to its fleet in Peru, a territory the business only recently re-entered in late 2021, by signing an agreement to acquire the towage operations of Ian Taylor Peru, increasing its fleet in this country to 10 vessels.

Also, in 2022 the company received two new state-of-the-art tugboats for its operations in Chile. The latest milestone achieved by SAAM Towage for its Towage Division is signing an agreement with the Brazilian company Starnav to acquire 17 tugs currently operating in Brazil. The deal also involves the purchase of four additional tugs presently under construction.

Mr Gómez concluded with his vision for the company’s future regional participation.

“Going forward, we need to ensure that we can participate in the coming volume with the shifts in the energy industry, ensuring that we are able to expand geographically into regions in which we’re not currently operating. Within the next three years, by 2025, we hope to have a foothold in a different region of the world or in a different project.” n

Gómez, Hernán SAAM Towage Managing Director