Other Businesses

ABP Property

Our property division brings together an unrivalled land bank spanning 21 multi-modal locations around the country, with 960 hectares of port-based development land.

ABPmer

Drawing on 60 years of experience, ABP Marine Environmental Research (ABPmer) provides specialist marine environmental research and consultancy services.

UK Dredging

UK Dredging (UKD) operates the largest British-owned dredging fleet and specialises in the provision of reliable and cost effective port maintenance dredging services.

The Government has committed to decarbonising the electricity grid by 2030 – an ambitious and extremely welcome target – and has set in place the people and principles that will deliver it. Last week Associated British Ports (ABP) was delighted to host Chris Stark CBE at its parliamentary reception, who shoulders the impressive job title of Head of Mission Control and with it, responsibility for delivering on this commitment.

Chris’ Clean Power Action Plan emphasises the need for positive, prompt and powerful change. At ABP, we warmly support Chris’ Mission, but as the largest port business in the UK, we areconscious that in terms of infrastructure development 2030 feels like tomorrow. Many of the large projects that ABP is working on today will not help to reduce carbon emissions until after 2030, but if we don’t tackle those projects urgently today, they will simply never happen.

ABP has a track record of investing one quarter of a billion pounds every year into our ports and looking ahead we have a pipeline of work worth £5.5bn. Those projects – in clean energy, clean maritime and clean industry – need support from policymakers and politicians today to ensure the infrastructure we need is ready. Fundamentally, our concern is that the immediacy of the 2030 target must not distract from our ultimate goal - which is net zero by 2050.

At ABP we have plans to:

  1. Build the world’s first floating offshore wind hub at our port of Port Talbot, creating 11,000 jobs across Wales and unlocking billions of pounds of investment.
  2. Develop the Green Energy Terminal at our Port of Immingham in the Humber, to receive imports of green ammonia – helping industry to swap to green hydrogen. That will be crucial when you remember that the Humber hosts the most carbon intensive industrial cluster in the country. The same terminal will be a vital link in the Viking CCS cluster, able to receive shipments of captured carbon which can then be stored under the North Sea. There’s a whole new market opportunity here, as the UK Continental Shelf has 78 billion tonnes of potential storage capacity for sequestered CO2 meaning we can be a vital future partner for our European friends’ industrial decarbonisation pathways.

  3. Continue to support our customers’ decarbonisation efforts, through provision of green fuels for shipping and electrification where possible, by building renewables on our ports to increase supply.


In order to be ready for tomorrow we need support from policymakers and politicians because we face major challenges: planning, consenting and the weight of unnecessary bureaucracy. In places, the policy framework simply isn’t ready.

Many of the conversations being held by this new government provide a reason to be hopeful. Chris’ Clean Power Action Plan is a vital step. The focus on the creation of a new Industrial Strategy is another very positive development.

Our CEO, Henrik L. Pedersen, said: “I am proud to have taken my place on the Government’s Advisory Council supporting the Industrial Strategy. I will use my seat to champion the priorities of infrastructure, clean energy and trade.”

“As a country we will gain from the green energy transition - but it is a transition, not a quick cutover. We must work together to unpick what isn’t working and build what our industry and economy needs. In 2025, I’m look forward to supporting Chris Stark’s Clean Power Mission and using it as the launch pad for swift, efficient decarbonisation of more industrial sectors. Working together, we can make this a pivotal year.”