James Fisher and Sons

James Fisher and Sons, a shipowning, operating and managing company and port operator, gave £1,500 to the Labour Party in 1998 (they also gave £1,500 to the Tories). They manage the Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd (PNTL) fleet^[1]. PNTL is a subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels plc's Sellafield Ltd^[2] and own 6 purpose-built irradiated fuel carrier ships. The PNTL ships transport nuclear waste and fuel around Europe and Japan.

Two armed freighters from their PNTL fleet, the Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Teal, carried MOX re-processed nuclear fuel to Japan in October 1999 (both ships are armed with three 30mm cannons and carry 7 tonnes of high-explosive ammunition along with their quarter of a tonne loads of plutonium). The shipment carried by the Pacific Pintail had been re-processed at BNFL's new £300 million MOX plant at Sellafield. After delivery it was discovered that vital quality-control and safety data for the MOX fuel had been falsified during production by BNFL. In July 2000 the Government agreed to take back the flawed nuclear fuel at a cost of tens of millions of pounds (of taxpayers money), to keep the Japanese nuclear industry happy - continued sales of the fuel to Japan are vital to the commercial viability of the MOX plant at Sellafield.

James Fisher and Sons also manage a warehousing complex at RAF Sealand^[3] and have shipping contracts with oil companies BP, Esso, Texaco, Philips, Elf, Carless, Shell, Mobil and Statoil. They charter a cable-laying ship to Cable and Wireless and own an underwater excavating company called Seafloor Dynamex. They also own and operate more than 20 tankers from Liverpool and Gibraltar.

Their former Executive Chairman, David Cobb, got a CBE in June 1999. He was paid £133,000 in 1998, plus a £105,000 bonus (he was paid £247,000 in 1997). He was elected President of the Chamber of Shipping in 1998.

In August 1999, John Prescott announced a tax-break for the shipping industry which removed corporation tax on British-flagged ships. It was described bt Tory stalwart Lord Sterling as the 'biggest boost to our shipping industry in 20 years' ^[4].

Clients

• British Nuclear Group
• British Energy
• DSND
• Exxon
• Maersk Oil and Gas
• Ministry of Defence
• Stolt Offshore
• Technip
• UK Submarine Rescue Service

Contacts

Head Office

Fisher House PO Box 4 Barrow-in-Furness Cumbria LA14 1HR

Tel: 01229 615400 Fax: 01229 836761 Email: b.reception@james-fisher.co.uk

London Office

Second Floor 6 Broad Street Place London EC2M 7JH

Tel: 020 7614 9500 Fax: 020 7256 2667 Email: a.rumbold@james-fisher.co.uk

References

Article from Red Star Research

1. ^Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited 2005, PNTL Fleet Management
2. ^Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited 2005 About PNTL
3. ^The Pelican Vol 2 Issue 13, October 13 2006 p.5
4. ^BBC News, August 12, 1999, UK, retrieved 27 July 2007 from BBC website