06-07-2025
50 years ago: Greenock engineer bags huge international contract (1975)
A FORMER Greenock engineer has won one of the biggest oil pipeline contracts ever awarded in South Africa.
Mr Alistair MacDonald's Company, Natal Industrial &Marine Ltd has been commissioned to supply more than £14m worth of steel for a new pipeline linking Durban and Johannesburg.
Mr MacDonald, whose mother lives in Belville Street, left Scotland in 1962, having worked as a marine engineer with Kincaids He was educated at St Lawrence's and later at St Joseph's College, Dumfries.
Alistair McDonald (Image: archive) Mr MacDonald started his own business called A. MacDonald Ltd. six years ago, concentrating on the supply of special steels and alloys.
Natal Industrial & Marine- a subsidiary - specialises in petrol-chemical work.
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The new contract involves supplying 60,000 tons of 16-inch diameter piping laid over a distance of more than 400 miles.
Mr MacDonald's company won the contract in the face of stiff international competition from Japan, Germany, and Italy.
This article first appeared in the Greenock Telegraph on July 4, 1975.
