GAC, formally Gulf Agency Company, is a shipping, logistics and marine services group headquartered at its own building in the Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It was established in 1956 and reports more than 7,500 employees in over 300 offices across more than 50 countries, organised around three service strands: shipping, logistics and marine.

Origins and expansion

The business began when the Swedish entrepreneur Bengt Lindwall signed an agreement with two Kuwaiti businessmen to form Gulf Agency Company and offer professional ship agency services in Kuwait; the country's Shipping Licence No. 1 is still displayed at the GAC Kuwait office in Farwaniya. More Middle East offices followed during the 1960s as oil, shipping and logistics activity grew. Companies were added across the Eastern Mediterranean, Africa, Asia Pacific and the Indian subcontinent during the 1970s and 1980s, with Europe, the Americas, Central Asia and Australia following in the 1990s and 2000s. The country list on the group's website runs from Angola, Benin, Ghana and Senegal to Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, and from the Gulf states to Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and New Zealand.

Three service strands

  • Shipping: ship agency, hub and protecting agency, husbandry services, launch services, P&I and hull and machinery support, canal and straits transits, hull cleaning and bunker fuels.
  • Logistics: contract logistics, freight services, project logistics, ship spares logistics, land transportation, international moving and supply chain management.
  • Marine: offshore support, rig moving operations and tug and barge operations through GAC Marine.

The GAC Marine fleet

GAC Marine supports offshore surveys, construction, pipe and cable laying, exploration, extraction and production, providing anchor handling, transport of construction materials, barge and tug support, crew transportation, supply and provision deliveries and emergency response. Its published fleet list is managed from Abu Dhabi and names anchor handling tugs such as Agneta, built in 2007 at 48 metres with 7,340 horsepower and capacity for 110 passengers, Susanna, a 2004 vessel of 49.5 metres and 8,000 horsepower, and Kristiina from 2008; tow tugs including Matilda and Ulrika, both 40 metres and 4,000 horsepower; anchor handling tug supply vessels such as Marzhan, 59.3 metres and built in 2009; and crew supply vessels including GAC Canopus. Most listed units are stationed in the Arabian Gulf. Offshore work is backed by barges of 150 to 280 feet for pipe and offshore structures such as jackets and topsides, and by onshore supply and maintenance bases in selected locations in the Middle East, the Caspian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Recent developments

On 30 September 2025 GAC opened an office in Buenos Aires to extend its coverage of South America's east coast. On 30 July 2025 the group and Laser Group completed the sale of their South African joint venture, GAC Laser International, to the German logistics company Fr. Meyer's Sohn. In Bergen on 13 May 2025 GAC signed an agreement to support the Northern Lights joint venture, part of Norway's Longship carbon capture and storage programme. GAC was named official logistics partner for The Ocean Race for a fourth consecutive time on 31 March 2025, extending a relationship that dates from 2014, and its Dubai contract logistics division collected industry awards in March 2025. The group also publishes a daily Hot Port News service, whose notices in June 2026 covered dredging in Hong Kong's Kwai Tsing container basin and cable laying from Tseung Kwan O, and it runs an insights section on topics such as pharmaceutical logistics and the marine fuel transition.

People, training and contact

The GAC Corporate Academy has delivered competency-based learning since 2007 through an online platform, with courses for staff, partners and network agents. Day-to-day leadership sits with group president Pontus Fredriksson, executive chairman and trustee Bjorn Engblom, group chief financial officer Mikael Leijonberg and regional vice-presidents for the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Indian subcontinent, Europe and Africa, the Americas, and for logistics and energy and shipping respectively. Compliance, QHSSE and sustainability material is published under the About GAC section, and head office enquiries use [email protected].