Breakbulk Magazine Issue 5 2020 by Breakbulk Events & Media

Issue 5 / 2020

The Publication for the Industrial Project Supply Chain Industry

PREPARE FOR LAUNCH

Space-bound Project Cargoes Conquer Earthly Challenges

ITER Project Takes Place

Testing Sustainability

Footing Renewables Bill

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IN THIS ISSUE

Cover Story

14 PREPARE FOR LAUNCH

Space-bound Project Cargoes Conquer Earthly Challenges

24 MARKET SPOTLIGHT

50 ENERGY UPDATE

Mammoth ITER Project Takes Shape

Renewables Fill Recovery Card for South America

FUSING OF GLOBAL PROJECT MINDS

30 ENVIRONMENT

NO TURNING BACK NOW Sustainability Goals More Important than Ever

36 MARKET SPOTLIGHT

SOWING GREEN SEEDS Renewables Investment Promises Stable Growth

40 LOGISTICS PERSPECTIVE

BLOWING AWAY PANDEMIC BLUES

54 PROFILE

FOUR DECADES’ WORTH

A Conversation with Jack Futcher as he Passes on the Reins at Bechtel

58 PROFILE

IN AT THE DEEP END

Bertling’s MacIsaac Takes Reins During the Pandemic

BEYOND TRANSPORTATION

64 OCEAN SERVICES

46 REGIONAL REVIEW

Mental, Physical Toll of Crew Change Restrictions

Carriers are Blurring Wind Services Lines

ESTABLISHING THE WIND DIRECTION

SAVE OUR SEAFARERS

Europe Poised to Publicize Offshore Ambitions

4 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

ISSUE 5 / 2019

TRADEMARK TRADE SHIP TRADE STAR

IN THIS ISSUE

68 TRADE NOTES

IS IT SAFE? ENSURING THE RIGHT PARTNERS

Webinar Explores Vetting of Project Supply Chain Partners

REGIONAL REVIEW

AFRICA IS EVERYONE’S DARLING

80 LOGISTICS PERSPECTIVE MORE THAN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Industry Associations Morph to Aid Members

83 EUROPEAN PORTS

EUROPE PORTS RESILIENT Persevere Despite Covid-19 Upheaval

Also in this issue 08 EDITORIAL 10 C ONVERSATION 62 THOUGHT LEADERS 76 BREAKBULKONE

US-China Trade Spat Plays into Continent’s Hands

6 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

ISSUE 5 / 2019

EDITORIAL

THE FINAL FRONTIER The industrial project supply chain industry is unique, highly complex and intricate, engaging engineering, analytics, technology and innovation, and even some old-school solutions to minutely plan and account for every contingency. For one sector of project cargo, logistics can actually be described as rocket science. In our cover story, “Prepare for Launch,” Gary Burrows page 14, Paul Scott Abbott details how the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, is solving the myriad logistics challenges of sourcing and delivering components – massive and minute – in pursuing its various space programs, including the Artemis program, which will initially launch in 2021. The program aims to eventually deliver astronauts to the moon, and pave the way for missions to Mars. Then there’s the growing influence of private-industry space programs, including SpaceX’s manned launches, and the ongoing International Space Station ferries. While the Artemis program involves cutting-edge technology and innovation, NASA’s logistics to support the program requires equally innovative approaches, but relies on a range of conveyance that stretches back to the Space Shuttle program and the 1960s Apollo Moon missions before it. In the story, Jay Green, NASA’s logistics manager, told Breakbulk, “Whether it’s the clearance of a railroad bridge or the lifting capacity of a launch vehicle, most of our flight hardware has some sort of transportation challenge that has to be addressed early on in the design process.” While NASA’s long, rich history provides a depth of logistics experience to draw upon, the international ITER project to harness fusion to provide clean, 8 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Gary G. Burrows / +1 904 535 5460 gary.burrows@hyve.group

carbon free sustainable energy, requires supply chain solutions from scratch (“Fusing of Global Project Minds,” page 24). The project, which stretches back to the Reagan-Gorbechev era, requires coordination in sourcing across three continents to complete the 180-hectare site in Saint Paul-lez Durance in southern France. Renewables, and particularly wind energy, are the project bright stops globally as shown in a series of stories covering Europe (“Establishing the Wind Direction,” page 46), ocean carriers (“Beyond Transportation,” page 40), and South America (“Blowing Away the Pandemic Blues,” page 50)

NEWS EDITOR Carly Fields carly.fields@hyve.group

BREAKBULK 365

Dharmendra Gangrade

Covid-19 and the “new normal” that the pandemic has created continues to be a key focus of our coverage, and each story in this issue in some way touches upon how the public and private sector continues to adapt. Certainly, it has impacted Breakbulk’s events with Breakbulk Europe being rescheduled to May 18-20, 2021 in Bremen, and Breakbulk Americas moving to Sept. 28-29, 2021 in Houston. Breakbulk Middle East will kick the new year off Feb. 9-10 in Dubai. Meanwhile, as the industry cannot meet in person in 2020, in September, Breakbulk Europe will provide The Digital Special, a series of online events Sept. 29-Oct. 1, that will provide a business outlook, explore a sustainable future and survey the breakbulk technology landscape. Register for these special online events at www.breakbulk. com/page/breakbulk365. The Digital Special is part of Breakbulk365, a series of webinars and shows from May through December that feature industry leaders and project cargo companies. Coverage from recent sessions may be found in this issue, covering crew change restrictions (“Save Our Seafarers,” page 64), vetting of partners, “Is It Safe?,” page 68) and a range of BreakbulkONE coverage (page 76). Be safe and well, until we meet again.

DESIGNER Mark Clubb REPORTERS Felicity Landon Amy McLellan Lori Musser Namrata Nadkarni Malcolm Ramsay Thomas Timlen BREAKBULK EDITORIAL BOARD John Amos Amos Logistics

Noelle Burke Agility

Dennis Devlin Maersk

L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering

John Hark

Bertling Project Logistics

Samuel Holmes Wood

Dennis Mottola

Global Logistics Consultant

Roger Strevens

Wallenius Wilhelmsen

Jake Swanson

DHL Industrial Projects

Ulrich Ulrichs

BBC Chartering

Margaret Vaughan Consultant

JP Verschuure Rebel Group

Dirk Visser

Dynamar D.V.

Grant Wattman

Jade Management Group

PORTFOLIO DIRECTOR Nick Davison nick.davison@hyve.group ACCOUNT MANAGER Dee Cariglino / +1 251 408 2308 dee.cariglino@hyve.group SUBSCRIPTIONS To subscribe, email gary.burrows@hyve.group, or call from inside the U.S. +1 904 535 5460 between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm EST. A publication of Hyve Group plc. The Studios, 2 Kingdom Street Paddington, London W2 6JG, UK

ISSUE 5 / 2019

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CONVERSATION Conversation is a forum of thought leaders, commentaries, letters, editors’ notes and noteworthy social media from Breakbulk’s audience and staff. Join in the conversation – submit your views to gary.burrows@breakbulk.com, or through Breakbulk’s social media channels on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

TRADE, SEA-LEVEL RISE WILL FORCE PORT EXPANSION A combination of rising sea levels and demand over the next 30 years will force global seaports to greatly expand their footprint, according to a study published by the organization Advancing Earth and Space Science, or AGU. The study, Earth’s Future, is a peerreviewed scientific journal that focuses on climate change and future sustainability, a spokesperson said. The study modeled trade growth and port demand through 2050 under four scenarios of climate-policy and interventions and global temperature increases. “All scenarios lead to increased traffic through ports, requiring doubling or quadrupling port areas,” AGU said. Seaports will need to expand their footprint by 1,424 square miles through 2050, the study determined, as the cost to expand port capacity to handle

freight will surpass costs to mitigate sea-level rise. The study’s scenario with least greenhouse gas restrictions produced the highest cost projections, at US$750 billion for port expansion to handle demand. Policies that aim to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius by 2100 are expected to slow trade growth overall, according to the study. Shifts in distribution of traded goods such as bioenergy commodities and decreasing demand for fossil fuels will decrease energy commodities from their current 40 percent of seaborne trade. Ports globally have been in expansion mode since the 1980s, responding to burgeoning trade growth due to liberalization of trade, China’s acceptance into the World Trade Organization and opening of its economy, as well as increased containerization. Today, ship

transportation accounts for 80 percent of global trade. Demand for port services will continue to rise, according to the maritime industry and United Nations’ projections. AGU noted that previous studies have focused on the economic impacts of climate change on ports to adapt existing facilities to sea level rise and stronger, more frequent storms. However, incorporating adaptation strategies into new construction is a relatively low-cost means to prevent future disruption from the effects of climate change, the study’s authors maintain. AGU is a global organization supporting 130,000 Earth and space science enthusiasts and experts. Earth’s Future is an open-access publication and the new study is available for free online at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary. wiley.com/.

MPV SECTOR SEES RATES INCH UPWARD

Multipurpose time charter rates edged upward in August for the second month after cratering to a June low, according to shipping consultancy Toepfer Transport. The average six- to 12-month time charter rate for multipurpose shipping

rose slightly to US$6,492 in August, up US$101 from US$6,391 in July. This compares with a near annual high of US$7,547 in August last year. Toepfer’s Multipurpose Shipping Report index is based on a 12,500 deadweight-tonne multipurpose /

heavy-lift F-Type vessel for a six to 12-month charter period. Headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, Toepfer Transport is a leading sale and purchase broker, focusing its research particularly on the multipurpose/heavy-lift market.

TOEPFER TRANSPORT MULTIPURPOSE SHIPPING TIME CHARTER INDEX

The index is based on a 12,500-deadweight-ton MPP/HL “F-Type” vessel for a six-to 12-month time charter, and represents the monthly assessment from operators, owners and brokers. $7,524

RATE PER DAY

$7,440 $7,610

$7,476 $7,529

$7,578

$7,490 $7,547

$7,415 $7,554

$7,515

$7,221 $7,393 $6,441

$6,863

$6,391 $6,492

$6,381 Mar 2019

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan 2020

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Source: Toepfer Transport, www.toepfer-transport.com

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ISSUE 5 / 2020

FINDING EFFICIENCIES IN HEAVY LIFTING At the start of 2020 Mammoet completed its acquisition of ALE, creating the world’s largest heavy equipment operator. Currently about halfway through its 18-month integration schedule, the world has transformed around this heavylift giant. The world of heavy lifting was already on an evolutionary track before Covid-19 hit, said Olivier Rosensveig, integration director at Mammoet. “As project scopes have increased, EPCs (engineering, procurement and construction companies) have needed to form ever-larger joint ventures to satisfy owner requirements,

RECOVERY HOPES Vedran Muratbegovic, responsible for Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean’s breakbulk business development, expressed hope that a recovery in volumes would start in the third quarter, although he acknowledged that the impact of the pandemic remains “very unpredictable.” The group has taken a range of actions in 2020 to adjust capacity, reduce costs and protect its cash position through this turbulent phase. Muratbegovic added that because industrial projects are generally planned over a longer-term period, “reversing those investments after a certain point becomes impractical and, from a purely financial perspective, not necessarily more cost-efficient than seeing the project through to its completion.

and therefore they need suppliers that are stable and can work on a bigger scale. This was the reason why Mammoet needed to reshape itself to better serve its customers.” One of the main drivers for Olivier the merger was to Rosensveig increase the busiMammoet ness’s resilience

“This is one of the reasons why we have continued to see solid demand for the ocean transportation of oversized/breakbulk cargoes, with some good project shipments that were already in the pipeline pre Covid-19, over a period in which other sectors saw sharp declines as a result of increasing restrictions and the subsequent drop in demand,” he said. However, it is more difficult to make predictions with much accuracy looking 12-18 months ahead, he said. “The Covid-19 situation remains unpredictable, fast changing and at different stages across the globe, with the threat of a second wave still there, so it remains to be seen how well markets adjust to this no longer ‘new normal’ but the reality that it has become.”

and agility – goals that have been put to the test during the Covid-19 pandemic. “A clear positive to have to come out of this situation is that it is forcing us to rethink how we work. Like most businesses, we have been communicating via teleconference. However, we have also improved operational work, through remote supervision of projects; a technique we deployed recently during the load-in of four monopiles in the APAC (Asia-Pacific) region. This work may help us to achieve greater efficiencies once business returns to how it was previously,” Rosensveig said.

Project cargo demand has stayed stable for industrial projects. CREDIT: WALLENIUS WILHELMSEN OCEAN

NO BRAKES ON RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECTS A renewed global environmental focus means that governments and developers are continuing to look at how to decarbonize and provide a balanced energy portfolio. This is leading to increasing renewable energy activities in the Far East and Americas, especially in the offshore industry, according to Mirko Menge, executive vice president of the deugro group.

While the power industry is a very mature market for freight forwarders to operate in, there are, Menge said, still areas where added value can be provided. And while the Covid-19 crisis has hit all sectors, including the wind power industry, significant increases in demand for electricity – with an expected 20 percent growth between

2020 and 2040 globally – means there is “no option to stop energy projects.” “Production in Europe is mainly driven by investments in the renewable sectors and transmission lines; it is not a question of stopping or proceeding with renewable energy projects, but more a question on when and how to execute them,” Menge said.

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 11

CONVERSATION

Quality of Honesty Reputations are Hard to Build, Easy to Break

BY MARGARET VAUGHAN

n the summer of 1961 New York, and indeed the entire baseball watching public, was focused on two New York Yankee players – Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle – who were chasing an elusive goal: to topple Babe Ruth’s mythic 60 home run record set in 1927. Ultimately Maris hit 61 home runs, beating both the record and Mantle in the process. During that baseball season Maris was vilified, scorned and abused for the simple reason that he wasn’t Mickey Mantle. If the record were to be broken the public wanted Mantle to be the one to break it. Through it all, Maris was shy, humble, self-effacing, and maintained his integrity despite intense daily pressure from both sports media and fans. For nearly 30 years after his achievement, his record carried an asterisk after it in an effort by the baseball commissioner Ford Frick to diminish the achievement because it had taken Maris 162 games, where Ruth had set the record in 154. Maris’ brand was tarnished even though he hadn’t cheated, or taken performance enhancing drugs or steroids. He had done it all on sheer guts and ability. In 1991 Roger Maris’ achievement was finally recognized and the asterisk was removed by then-commissioner Fay Vincent. Unfathomably he has still not been elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame though his bat is. Maris died in 1985, not knowing that his record was valid.

KEEPING CLEAN

We spend our entire careers developing, perfecting and promoting our brands/reputations. Our industry is relatively small and it is certainly incestuous. We all know or are known 12 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE

WWW.BREAKBULK.COM

to each other either through direct interaction or by repute. Maintaining our personal integrity in such a fishbowl is critical for long-term success. Malfeasance, unethical behavior, underhanded or improper actions are never kept secret … there are always whispers if not outright, full-on water-cooler discussions. It is important to have good character. Being honorable and honest in the work we do and in our relations with others is essential in our life. Our actions affect not just ourselves but the companies, organizations, or associations with which we are linked. We are a reflection and an embodiment of their core values as well as those of our own families and communities. There is a good reason why every company requires yearly ethics training. Violations of those issues addressed in the training taints the organization with which we are associated, and their integrity is also questioned. Such conduct puts an asterisk beside our names. Unlike Maris’ record, the asterisk does not get erased. Our industry has a long memory. As Shakespeare warned: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” Keep your nose clean and your brand even cleaner. In the end we are all responsible for safeguarding our reputations. As the Bible says: “For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.” BB Margaret J. Vaughan has more than 30 years’ experience in all facets of supply chain management.

ISSUE 5 / 2020

Safety from the Start

Room for Improvement in Onshore Wind Farm Safety

ood project safety is a team game and the best performing industries – and their leading companies – agree upon broad common standards underpinned by effective communication and engagement with their supply chains. That is well accepted. But unfortunately, in today’s wind industry, this is not always the case. As a result, we are seeing far too many accidents and nearmisses, especially during transportation and construction of turbines for onshore wind farms. As if to underline the point, one project last year reported nine – yes, nine – serious incidents within days of each other. In some ways, the problems – while not excusable – are understandable. The very nature of the onshore industry means that wind farms are located in isolated and inaccessible locations, while the turbines themselves are becoming bigger and heavier as the technology develops. Of course, the relevant health and safety authorities will deal with individual incidents. But to attribute blame (or not) after an incident is not my point. We need to change the way we work. To make the necessary step change in safety culture the whole wind industry needs to come together and agree upon standards and practices that will not only improve safety – and potentially save lives – but will also make the industry more efficient. For, to be clear, safety and efficiency are inextricably linked – they are two sides of the same coin. In short, if a job is run efficiently, properly planned and well executed, then it will be safer.

BEST PRACTICE GUIDANCE

To progress this debate, ESTA recently published a new best practice guide with the backing of many leading turbine and crane manufacturers. In essence, we are trying to highlight the risks of poor planning, and stress the importance of early engagement of all of the firms working on a project. Our work identified common characteristics

in many accidents – cranes collapsing due to poor weather or ground conditions, or vehicles turning over due to poor quality access roads and badly planned site infrastructure. The simple conclusion is that good safety has to be factored into the management and pricing of a project from the beginning with the active involvement of all those involved. To give one example, the guide shows how involving transport and crane companies in the planning of the site layout on a wind farm can greatly improve efficiency by making access and construction quicker and safer. Yet too often, the transport and crane firms are not consulted until too late in the process. The worrying truth is that the wind industry has some way to go before everyone in it is seen to be taking site safety as seriously as other sectors. We hope that will soon change. Only by working together with a clear understanding of the risks and how best to manage them can we create a more efficient and safer industry for the benefit of everyone. BB

BY DAVID COLLETT, ESTA

ESTA promotes best practice for transport and installation of onshore wind farms

CREDIT: ESTA

To download a free copy of the Best Practice Guide for Transport and Installation of Onshore WTG Systems, go to www.estaeurope.eu. David Collett is president of ESTA, the European Association of Abnormal Road Transport and Mobile Cranes, and managing director of the Collett Group.

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 13

COVER STORY

PREPARE FOR LAUNCH Space-bound Project Cargoes Conquer Earthly Challenges

14 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

ISSUE 5 / 2020

Port Canaveral’s 154-ton-lift-capacity mobile harbor crane, billed as the largest such unit in the U.S., is designed specifically to lift rocket boosters and other heavy cargo. CREDIT: CANAVERAL PORT AUTHORITY

BY PAUL SCOTT ABBOTT

“Whether it’s the clearance of a railroad bridge or the lifting capacity of a launch vehicle, most of our flight hardware has some sort of transportation challenge that has to be addressed early on in the design process.” – Jay Green, NASA

very “3-2-1-liftoff” requires what might be termed the “6-5-4” – the intensive process of getting ponderous spacebound project cargoes safely to the launch pad. While technically not itself rocket science, the earthly transport of launch system boosters and other oversize units destined for space entails its own set of challenges, requiring rigorous planning and close collaboration. From a custom-fitted barge and Super Guppy aircraft to specially suited trains and trucks to a slow-speed Crawler transporter, myriad modes are engaged in getting hefty project cargoes on their way to liftoff from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Kennedy Space Center, or KSC, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast. As NASA advances toward landing the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024, with longer-term sights set on Mars, while International Space Station activity heats up as well, space-related cargo moves are becoming increasingly frequent right here on planet Earth. “At NASA, transportation constraints are built into our design processes for flight hardware from the beginning,” Jay Green, NASA’s logistics manager based at KSC, told Breakbulk. “Whether it’s the Jay Green clearance of a NASA railroad bridge or the lifting capacity of a launch vehicle, most of our flight hardware has some sort of transportation challenge that has to be addressed early on in the design process.” Designs often require working within functionalities of existing systems and, when necessary, building new capabilities to augment tried-and-true transport equipment, according to Green. www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 15

COVER STORY

A launch vehicle stage adapter is loaded on the Pegasus barge at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for shipment to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. CREDIT: NASA / FRED DEATON

BARGE LENGTHENED

“NASA’s Artemis program is providing new transportation challenges,” Green said. For example, the core stage for the new superheavy-lift Space Launch System, or SLS, was too long and heavy to be transported using NASA’s Pegasus barge that was deployed for delivery for the Space Shuttle external tank. Therefore, the barge was cut apart and rebuilt to accommodate the requirements of the core stage for NASA’s Artemis program, which is to get off the ground in 2021 with the unmanned Artemis I mission before eventually delivering astronauts to the moon in 2024. Continuing NASA’s longstanding deployment of barges for transport of large spaceflight structures, the original Pegasus barge was built in 1999 to bring the giant external tanks for Space Shuttle launches to KSC from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans – a 900-mile journey along inland and open-ocean waterways. The 212-foot-tall, 27.6-footdiameter SLS core stage, including 16 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

NASA’s newly extended Pegasus barge, at a length of 310 feet, is maneuvered by tugboats through a turning basin at the Kennedy Space Center launch complex en route to its first delivery in support of the agency’s Artemis moon missions. CREDIT: NASA / MIKE DOWNS

cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks for feeding four RS-25 rocket engines, represents the longest item ever shipped via a NASA barge. To accommodate its horizontal transport, the Pegasus barge has been extended to 310 feet – about the length of a football field. The Pegasus modification involved replacing a 115-foot-long segment of the barge with a 165-foot section. The work was done by crews at Conrad Shipyard in Morgan City, Louisiana, utilizing naval architecture expertise from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Marine Design Center in Philadelphia and Bristol Harbor Group of Bristol, Rhode Island. In fall 2019, the refurbished barge made its first delivery to KSC – a 114-ton mockup of the SLS core stage being used in practice maneuvers by NASA and contractor Jacobs Engineering Group. The trip included stops for testing at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. In late July, another Artemis

shipment arrived at KSC via barge from Huntsville, this one being a cone-shaped connector known as a launch vehicle stage adapter. Green pointed out that distances between engaged sites adds to the complexity of logistics. “One of the issues that we face here at the Kennedy Space Center is that NASA centers, international partners and the aerospace contractors who build much of our hardware are geographically dispersed,” Green said. “Parts and major components of the final product have to be transported from all over the globe before arriving at the launch site for final assembly and integration with the launch vehicle.”

ROCKET TRAIN DEPLOYED

NASA’s major Artemis contractors include Northrop Grumman, which has supplied rocket propulsion dating back to the Apollo program that began in the 1960s. The first segments for rocket boosters to be used for Artemis missions arrived at KSC in June from Northrop Grumman’s manufacturing facility in Promontory, Utah. ISSUE 5 / 2020

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Artemis I booster segments that arrived by train from a Northrop Grumman manufacturing facility in Utah are processed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Atlantic Coast. CREDIT: NASA

Northrop Grumman supply chain logistics specialist Jeff Bitner said the so-called Rocket Train used to get the SLS boosters from Utah to KSC is

essentially the same rail conveyance that has been deployed for 30 years in transporting flight-ready Space Shuttle booster segments to Florida

and returning spent segments to Utah for refurbishment. “We transport the boosters the same way we have for three decades,” said Bitner, who noted that the 2,800-mile journey from Utah to Florida takes 10 days. “The train is closely monitored by crew each step of the way.” The Rocket Train consists of 21 railcars, including 10 spacer boxcars, and two Union Pacific Railroad locomotives that have undergone extensive preparations to ship the booster segments, each of which weighs about 180 tons and measures more than 12 feet in diameter, with segments ranging in length from 27 feet to 32 feet. Each SLS booster is

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COVER STORY

With a Florida East Coast Railway locomotive having taken the lead, a train carrying Northrop Grumman rocket booster units nears NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. CREDIT: NORTHROP GRUMMAN

made up of five segments, and each segment has its own railcar equipped with trackers and alarms, with each section encapsulated in a clamshell covering to help ensure booster safety. Three railroads took part in the transit, with Union Pacific leading the way as far as Memphis, where Norfolk Southern took the lead to Jacksonville, Florida, from which a Florida East Coast Railway locomotive headed the train to turnover to NASA at Titusville, Florida. Following assembly and placement of the SLS on the mobile launcher at KSC’s iconic Vehicle Assembly Building, the mammoth unit is to be moved to the launch pad on the

back of another piece of specialized transportation hardware, NASA’s Crawler transporter. KSC has relied on Crawler machines for last-mile transport since the 1960s, and, in

preparation for Artemis launches, one of the two such behemoths at KSC has been upgraded to enhance loadbearing capabilities on a platform the size of a baseball field.

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COVER STORY

CRAWLER INCHES ON

Protected by a shipping container, the Orion spacecraft to be deployed on the Artemis I mission is offloaded from NASA’s Super Guppy aircraft at Kennedy Space Center. CREDIT: NASA / KIM SHIFLETT

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NASA’s Green described the CT-2 Crawler as a “beast,” referencing its own 3,000-ton weight, adding that the combined weight of the Crawler and its Artemis SLS cargo is anticipated to top 10,000 tons, to move at the “blistering speed of 1 mph” on the 4.2-mile trip to the pad. Another venerable NASA vehicle dating back to the 1960s being deployed in its latest iteration to transport Artemis cargoes is the agency’s Super Guppy aircraft. The most recent version of the whale-shaped cargo airplane is the fifth in a series of modified Boeing B377s to carry the Super Guppy moniker. The turboprop plane boasts ability to carry as many as 36 tons, taken on and off the craft via a hinged foldaway nose. In March, the Orion spacecraft that is to top the Artemis I rocket arrived at KSC via Super Guppy following environmental testing

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ISSUE 5 / 2020

COVER STORY

NASA’s CT-2 Crawler transporter CREDIT: NASA / BEN SMEGELSKY

at NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. The Orion spacecraft, still encapsulated in a protective container, then was transported by way of specialized flatbed truck to the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, where it is undergoing final testing and assembly. Over-the-road trucks also are part of the mix of modes delivering Artemis cargo to KSC. The launch abort motor for the Artemis II crewed mission, enclosed in its shipping container, arrived at KSC by truck in April. The critical piece of hardware was trucked from Northrop Grumman’s facility in Promontory, Utah. The motor is part of Orion’s safety-focused emergency Launch Abort System, designed and built by NASA and Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin Space’s program communicator, Chris Pettigrew, said earthly logistics for space-bound elements typically involve a year or more of advance planning, including development of backup plans, yet the imperative transport of these high-value, sensitive, bulky cargoes to the launch pad tends to be overlooked by casual observers. “People definitely take for granted what it takes to get everything to that point,” Pettigrew said, citing surveys of bridge clearances and securing of permits for truck transits alone, plus the need for units to remain in pristine environments when they move from assembly clean rooms. “There’s

a lot of coordination and planning involved, and it is an ongoing process, with so many more launches today, just about every week it seems.” Without meticulously planned, highly collaborative efforts and a broad spectrum of specialized conveyance vehicles to get all the essential cumbersome cargoes to launch facilities, it

simply wouldn’t be possible for those engaged in the space race to pronounce that, indeed, all systems are go. A professional journalist for nearly 50 years, U.S.-based Paul Scott Abbott has focused on transportation topics since the late 1980s.

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COVER STORY

In a photo posted to Facebook by the Canaveral Port Authority in August 2016, the recovered first stage of a SpaceX rocket is shown sailing into Port Canaveral three days after launch from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. CREDIT: CANAVERAL PORT AUTHORITY

SPACE CARGO HELPS KEEP PORT CANAVERAL AFLOAT These are tough times for ports that rely heavily upon the cruise industry, and Port Canaveral, near Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, is no exception. But, with U.S. commercial space activity surging, Port Canaveral’s unique position – within 10 miles as the crow flies from these launch sites – offers the Canaveral Port Authority installation a hopeful glimmer even as uncertainty continues to cloud prospects for return of cruise ship sailings as the Covid-19 pandemic rages on. In late July, Port Canaveral, citing the ongoing federal no-sail order for cruise lines, implemented massive staff cuts, deploying a combination of measures reducing the number of employees on its payroll to 153 – down 43 percent from its pre-Covid-19 contingent of 268. Things would be even worse if not for Port Canaveral’s link with the burgeoning commercial space sector, including industry leader SpaceX, the California-based brainchild of megabillionaire Elon Musk, who is advancing his vision of colonization of Mars armed with a fortune accumulated through such ventures as Tesla and PayPal. 22 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

In late May, a SpaceX craft successfully launched two NASA astronauts from Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station, becoming the first private company to send humans into orbit. And, in August, the firm won a multibillion-dollar contract to participate in dozens of launches for the U.S. Space Force, established in December 2019 as America’s newest military branch. SpaceX has been leasing facilities at Port Canaveral since 2016, with uses including return to land of recovered reusable rocket boosters vertically poised atop specially fitted “drone ship” barge structures. “Port Canaveral is a one-of -its-kind deepwater seaport with unique capabilities to support the diverse needs of commercial space operations,” Capt. Capt. John John Murray, Port Murray Canaveral’s chief Port Canaveral executive officer,

told Breakbulk. “We are proud of our partners and excited for our entire community’s future with their vision for future space operations. “With ongoing economic growth in Central Florida and the growing commercial space sector here, investments in building our cargo-handling versatility ensure we can meet the demand for diverse capabilities, while well-positioning us for future opportunities,” he added. Murray pointed to the port’s addition in January 2019 of a US$6.2 million, 154-ton-lift-capacity Liebherr 600 mobile harbor crane, which he said is the nation’s largest of its kind. The crane, designed specifically to lift rocket boosters and other super-heavy cargo, recorded its busiest month to date in April, which, Murray said, was “due to the increased cadence of space flights from Cape Canaveral.” Also noted by Murray was this spring’s completion of a new multipurpose cargo berth, with construction under way for a 120-foot pier extension with a 2,000-pounds-per-foot loadbearing capacity “necessary for handling aerospace and other heavy project cargo.” BB ISSUE 5 / 2020

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FUSING OF GLOBAL PROJECT MINDS Mammoth ITER Project Takes Shape

s the world continues to battle Covid-19, a significant milestone has been achieved on a project that shows what can be achieved when nations come together to solve some of the biggest challenges facing humanity. ITER, originally the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is a long-running international 24 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

BY AMY MCLELLAN

project to harness the power of the sun to provide clean, carbon-free sustainable energy and, after many years of detailed design and planning, it is now moving into the project assembly phase. French President Emmanuel Macron led the virtual celebrations, hailing the energy program as “a promise of peace.” ITER DirectorGeneral Bernard Bigot agreed, adding

that the team “felt the weight of history.” It is 100 years since scientists first understood that fusion energy was the power source for the sun, and some six decades since the first tokamak – a Russian acronym that means “toroidal chamber with magnetic coils – was built in the Soviet Union. Until now, however, fusion power has been confined to small-scale experimental ISSUE 5 / 2020

Far left: Vacuum vessel sector No. 6, shipped from Korea, reached Fos-sur-Mer, France, on July 21 and was unloaded the following day. This 440-tonne component was more than 10 years in the making. This image: The transport of an ITER vacuum vessel sector (a load of 800 tonnes including housing and vehicle) is at the upper limit of what is possible in terms of weight and dimensions along the ITER Itinerary. In this picture, vacuum vessel sector No. 6 (manufactured in Korea) is shown moving through a narrow passage just a few kilometers from ITER. CREDIT: ITER

machines; ITER will be the bridge to tomorrow’s commercial-scale fusion power plants. This truly is an international project, bringing together China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the U.S., with the manufacturing of components spread across factories spanning three continents. Construction of the buildings on a 180-hectare site in Saint

Paul-lez-Durance in southern France started in 2010. Since then, specialist factories around the world have been at work, designing and building the 1 million components and 10 million parts. As of June 2020, this hugely ambitious project was 70 percent complete, although it remains to be seen what impact Covid-19 related delays might have on the targeted first plasma date of December 2025.

COMPONENT PARTS

The ITER “Tokamak” device itself comprises a seven-story structure in reinforced concrete. It will weigh 23,000 tonnes, equivalent to three Eiffel Towers, making it the largest and most powerful fusion machine ever built. Inside its vacuum vessel, hydrogen isotopes will be heated to temperatures in excess of 150 million degrees Celsius – 10 times www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 25

MARKET SPOTLIGHT

Europe’s first of nine powerful superconducting magnets for ITER is ready. Fusion for Energy and SIMIC members of staff stand in the middle of the 17-meter high, 9-meter wide and 320-tonne component. CREDIT: ITER

NEXT STEPS

as hot as the sun’s core – to form 830 cubic meters of hot plasma. Magnetic fields created by an array of giant superconducting coils and a strong electrical current will act as a powerful magnetic cage to shape and confine the superhot plasma so that it floats within the magnetic field without touching the walls of the ITER vacuum vessel. This superhot plasma will generate fusion reactions that will release 4 million times more energy than the burning of oil or gas. Inside a tokamak, the energy produced through the fusion of atoms is absorbed as heat in the walls of the vessel. Should the ITER experiments prove successful, then in the future this heat would be used to produce steam and then electricity by way of turbines and generators. The ITER Tokamak will be the largest and most powerful fusion device in the world. Designed to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for 50 megawatts of input heating power (a power amplification ratio of 10), it will take its place in history as the first fusion device to create net energy. 26 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

Key to this process are the 18 huge toroidal field coils that are being manufactured in Japan and Europe. On the European side, Italy’s ASG Superconductors was charged with building 10 of the coils at a dedicated 28,000-square-kilometer facility at La Spezia near Milan. From there the coils were shipped around Italy to the SIMIC facility at Marghera, Port of Venice, for cryogenic testing, insertion into their massive steel cases, welding and impregnation with resin for protection. Everything must be done with the utmost precision, with the team working to accuracies of just 0.2 millimeter on a structure that weighs more than 300 tonnes. Once complete, the magnet is encased in a specially designed transportation case, with sensors monitoring everything from humidity to acceleration. “This special frame protects it from any deformation,” explained Eduard Viladiu, ITER, Conductors & Magnets at Fusion for Energy, the EU body responsible for Europe’s contribution.

From SIMIC, the magnets, now weighing in at more than 400 tonnes, then needed to travel to Port of Marseille Fos in the south of France. The first step was a short road journey from SIMIC to Port of Venice via self-propelled modular trailers, or SPMT. This was the shortest leg of the journey, with the SIMIC facility located in the port’s hinterland. “We’re a specialist terminal for this sort of cargo,” said Pino Musolino, president and CEO of the North Adriatic Sea Port Authority, which handles 900 single pieces of project cargo and out-of-gauge cargo a year with a value of more than €1 billion. “It gives us great pride to handle this project flawlessly and to be part of a breakthrough technology to help build the future.” Life was made more challenging by the arrival of Covid-19, which hit Italy hard in February and March. “We were the first port in Europe to be under a Red Zone,” Musolino said. “Overnight we had to invent rules and procedures we had not had to envisage before to keep everyone safe. It complicated things, but we were quick enough and wise enough that we were able to manage everything and never had one day of disruption or lost job during the lockdown.” Covid-19 did mean, however, that the magnets spent additional time in storage outdoors, with SIMIC’s engineers anxiously monitoring humidity using sensors and Bluetooth connectivity. “At any moment we can detect and reduce humidity by opening the case and fixing the cause of it,” Viladiu said, adding that the group thought they had planned for every contingency, including piracy for components coming from Japan to the Red Sea. But they had not envisaged a pandemic. Even so, there was a contingency budget and plans were quickly put in place to handle the additional measures. ISSUE 5 / 2020

A 360-tonne, toroidal field D-shaped coil (TF11) is loaded onto a ship in the port of Marghera, near Venice, Italy. CREDIT: ITER

The magnets were then shipped from Venice to Marseilles, a journey time of about five to six days. The port had to modify its infrastructure to accommodate the loads, building a specially designed roll-on, roll-off boarding ramp able to support convoys of up to 880 tonnes carrying 600-tonne loads. Having arrived in Marseilles, there was another aquatic leg to the journey, with the magnets barged across the salt

28 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

marshes of the inland sea Étang-deBerre, which took another day. “This is quite sensitive to the weather because this part of Marseilles is very windy and conditions can change very quickly,” Viladiu noted. Once across, it was onto another SPMT for a 100-kilometer journey to the ITER construction site at SaintPaul-lez-Durance/Cadarache. Passing through 16 towns, including Aix-

en-Provence, this journey had to be completed in eight-hour overnight windows, Monday to Friday. At an average speed of 5-6 kilometers per hour, it took five days to reach the destination following the “ITER Itinerary,” a specially developed route to support the highly exceptional loads heading to ITER. A total of 120 highly exceptional loads will pass that way over the next five years. Roads have been widened, bridges reinforced and intersections modified in preparation for the exceptional size and weight of some of the Tokamak components. “It’s really challenging logistically” Viladiu said. “Any delay means you’re then into storage in a place for longer than you expected.” The team spent two years developing the design of the transportation frame, which protects the large but sensitive magnets on their long journey. It is reusable and heads back to the SIMIC factory to protect the next magnet on its long journey to ITER.

ISSUE 5 / 2020

MARKET SPOTLIGHT

A LONG JOURNEY

It has taken a long time to reach this point – Viladiu has been personally working on this project for nine years – with ITER having been conceived at the 1985 Geneva Superpower Summit. One year later, an agreement was reached: the European Union, Japan, the Soviet Union and the U.S. would jointly pursue the design for a large international fusion facility, ITER. Conceptual design work began in 1988 with the final design approved by the members in 2001. China, South Korea and India joined in the following years and the location in France was finally settled on in 2005. Construction got underway in 2010 and, despite the pandemic, things are really gathering pace now, with the first three toroidal field coils, from Japan and Europe, having now arrived in France. In May, the 1,250-tonne cryostat base was successfully lifted, transported from the Assembly Hall to the Tokamak Building, and positioned

At 11.5 meters including its transport frame, poloidal field coil No. 6 is the widest load planned for travel along the ITER Itinerary. CREDIT: ITER

in the Tokamak Pit, with a precision of 3 millimeters. The first poloidal field coil, procured by Europe in collaboration with China, has arrived in France from Shanghai – this has been the heaviest component yet, weighing in at 500 tonnes in its transportation case, and the first vacuum vessel sector, fabricated in Korea, has also arrived. After such a long planning phase, 2020 and 2021 promise to be busy

years for those working on the site as these exceptionally heavy, exceptionally-special loads arrive to play their part in harnessing the power of the sun here on planet Earth. BB Freelance journalist Amy McLellan has been reporting on the highs and lows of the upstream oil and gas and maritime industries for 20 years.

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 29

ENVIRONMENT

MSC’s carbon neutral program is open to all MSC’s customers, including those who use the shipping line for project cargo solutions. CREDIT: MSC

NO TURNING BACK NOW BY FELICITY LANDON

Sustainability Goals More Important than Ever

ustainability and the drive for zero emissions: is this something we can afford as an industry? Roger Strevens, vice president, global sustainability, at Wallenius Wilhelmsen, turned that question on its head. “The view we would take is quite different; we ask, how can anybody not afford to do this, at least over the medium to longer term? We are, whether we like it or not, ‘a smokestack industry,’ and that is inconsistent with the way the world is turning.” At the same time it’s important to note that shipping is one of the “hard to abate” sectors, he added: “What we 30 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

need to do isn’t easy, and there aren’t viable zero-emission solutions that are ready to go for whole swathes of the world fleet, including most transoceanic vessels. Also, this is a big, diverse industry insomuch as one size generally doesn’t fit all.” Strevens suggests five tests that should be Roger Strevens applied to any Wallenius Wilhelmsen sustainability

solution being put forward to determine its viability, whatever type of ship or segment of the industry. First, does it make technical sense? “Take fuel, for example – will a new fuel run on the ships we have today or are we talking about entirely new ships?” Second, is it operationally viable? “Fuel is most likely going to play an important role, although what fuel is still very unclear. The important point is, will the fuel be available where it needs to be, relating to operations and in the quantities needed? Third, cost is a huge part of this. “Clearly the cost relative to established ISSUE 5 / 2020

Wallenius Wilhelmsen ensures that its newest vessels are always more efficient than their predecessors. CREDIT: WALLENIUS WILHELMSEN

solutions matters hugely, but it is also important to think further ahead, because we are dealing with a shifting frame of reference; what isn’t financially viable today won’t necessarily remain so.” The frame of reference can change due to changes in regulation, innovation or demand, or some combination of the three. For example, take regulation: just 12 months ago, there was no market for 0.50 percent sulfur fuel. Or take innovation: “There is nothing to say that the more sustainable fuel will always be the more expensive. The transition cost might be pretty steep but once it’s established, it is not necessarily more expensive.” And then there is demand: this, Strevens said, is the point that is most often dismissed, “but it is an intriguing one because slowly, slowly we will see more interest in sustainable solutions from the market, even to include the point where there is a willingness to pay a bit more for that solution.”

THE COMMERCIAL TEST

The regulatory and/or political aspect is the fourth test. “It doesn’t necessarily apply to all types of solutions, but an example would be a nuclearpowered vessel; it may be safe and technically sound, but when it comes to politically charged issues, perception can be as important as fact. The same could also be considered for fuels that

are highly flammable, caustic or toxic, such as ammonia or hydrogen.” And finally, the fifth test: does it make commercial sense? “This tends to be left out of the consideration. If you deployed a certain low-emission technology on a vessel, would you be able to offer a service for which there is a demand, or which would still be competitive?” Strevens said. Wind is a good example here, he said. “If you have a vessel using wind power and it takes 16 days to make a transoceanic crossing while all your higher-emission competitors offer a service at nine days, it may be very tough to compete.” That would be particularly tricky for liner services carrying cargo with multiple shippers. Could a slower speed make everyone happy every time? In contrast, of course, a one-cargo or onecustomer shipment could be easier to determine. Even in a dedicated project cargo situation, however, it is likely that more than one customer’s cargo is required to fill a vessel. “Each of the five tests needs to be applied to each specific case,” Strevens said. “The importance of the questions and the impact of the answers will vary enormously across the industry and over time. Although these questions can set a high bar, the good thing about them is that they lay bare what is necessary from a solution for it to succeed.”

The challenge of getting a green solution up and running is demonstrated by the story of Hamburg’s Port Feeder Barge, or PFB, initiative. The concept of shuttling containers between terminals and facilities within the port via a barge built with its own gantry crane was put forward by PFB Managing Director Ulrich Malchow several years ago. “About 2 million TEU is transported within the Port of Hamburg each year, and 95 percent of that Ulrich Malchow goes by truck,” Port Feeder Barge he said. “The most logical thing would be to move these containers on the water.” To get around the cost of using terminal gantry cranes, a double-ended, self-propelled barge was designed around its own full-size container crane. Terminal operator HHLA was initially a big supporter but is now opposed to the idea, so the plans remain on Malchow’s desk. “Any shipyard could immediately start to construct this barge, but it doesn’t make sense to start with HHLA opposing. So we have looked at other places and other purposes.” He has received a good number of requests for information from other ports, but he says that without a reference it is difficult to sell just from a drawing. “Nobody wants to be the guinea pig in a project that doesn’t run yet,” he said. However, he sees room for optimism with the amount of money being made available for infrastructure investments in Germany in response to Covid-19. “That might help.”

TAKING WIND TO FEEDERS The concept has been adapted to create a Wind Feeder Barge, or WFB, concept for carrying heavy and/or large items in coastal waters and on rivers.

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 31

ENVIRONMENT

The Wind Feeder Barge is a concept for carrying heavy and/or large items in coastal waters and on rivers. CREDIT: PORT FEEDER BARGE

This would lift items up to 100 tonnes using its onboard crane, while heavier cargoes could be loaded by roll-on, roll-off, or ro-ro, with access from all sides. “The WFB is on the drawing board and has already attracted quite some interest from offshore logistics/heavy-lift industry,” Malchow said. “The PFB is designed to move containers within and around ports in a sustainable manner, shifting from road to waterway. The WFB is based on the same principle but is bigger, has a heavy-lift crane and has one full length deck, 95 meters by 32 meters. The crane and superstructure are side-mounted and there is ro-ro capability with ramps on three sides. For offshore wind logistics, the WFB would be ideal for moving large tower segments and other large components from manufacturing to assembly site, he says, replacing the need for towed barges and hired heavy-lift cranes at either end of the route. There is definitely demand, he said – the idea was actually initiated by two players in the industry. “The emerging offshore wind activities in the U.S. or Taiwan would be a good application as well.” The WFB would be useful for other project and heavy-lift cargoes, as well as containers and even lightering operations, he added. 32 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

INTERNATIONAL R&D BOARD

In December 2019, a proposal to form a US$5 billion R&D board to cut CO2 emissions from international shipping was put forward at the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee. The International Maritime Research and Development Board is an initiative of leading shipowners’ associations, including the International Chamber of Shipping, BIMCO, INTERTANKO, CLIA, INTERCARGO, IPTA, INTERFERRY and the World Shipping Council. As the joint announcement pointed out, international maritime trade is responsible for about 2 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions. “To achieve the Paris Agreement’s climate change goals, rapid decarbonization is vital.” The shipping industry’s growing focus on environmental issues and decarbonization, combined with trends in technology, regulation and trading patterns, will all shape the maritime industry over the next decades, said Noora Luotola, MSC’s sustainability communications adviser. MSC’s long-term approach to sustainability is wrapped around four pillars, she said: social inclusion, environment, occupational health and safety, and business ethics and protection of human rights. “To help meet the industry’s decarbonization goals, we are actively

exploring and trialing a range of alternative fuels and technologies – biofuels, for example – on top of some significant energy efficiency improvements across our fleet.” However, even with massive investment to increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions across its fleet, MSC recognizes that marine transport of goods still causes unavoidable CO2 emissions. In response, since early 2019, it has been offering customers a carbon neutral program. “We wanted to ensure that our customers had an option to compensate CO2 emissions to help bridge the gap between shipping today and the zero-carbon future we all aspire to,” Luotola said. MSC is believed to be the first shipping line to partner with climate solutions provider South Pole, a decision made to ensure full transparency and verification, she said. Customers can compensate for emissions from the transport of their cargo by financially contributing to selected projects that reduce emissions. South Pole cancels the same amount of carbon credits generated by these projects, which are audited and thirdparty certified. The carbon neutral program is open to all MSC’s customers, including those who use the shipping line for project cargo solutions. “No matter whether clients have a requirement for heavy-lift cargo, or for oversized cargo, we make it simple for our customers to offset unavoidable carbon emissions for their cargo,” Luotola said.

PRAGMATIC AND PROGRESSIVE

Wallenius Wilhelmsen is looking for progressive outcomes, “but we want them to be pragmatic as well,” Strevens said. The company reduced its carbon intensity by 32.5 percent between 2008 and 2019. Factors that have played a part include ongoing fleet renewal, as the company’s newest vessels are always more efficient than their predecessors. Also, the Panama Canal extension has enabled the introduction of vessels with greater beam. That, in turn, means those vessels are inherently more stable and require less ballast, which results in an improvement in design efficiency. ISSUE 5 / 2020

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ENVIRONMENT

The successful trial of rotor blades on the Maersk Pelican has increased interest in installations. CREDIT: MAERSK TANKERS

WIND PROPULSION GAINING FOLLOWERS The whole decarbonization picture is made up of many thousands of actions, large and small. One of those can be seen in the growing number of ship operators turning to non-polluting wind power to propel ships. Airseas, initially founded as a spinoff from Airbus, is using aviation and avionics inspired technology to develop a wind solution for shipping. The company is using a digital twin model in its wind design inspired by the autonomous systems of airliners, that aims to maximize the fuel savings from wind. Its SeaWing product, an automated kite which helps tow commercial vessels, is said to reduce fuel costs by 20 percent. Trials are going ahead this year and in 2021 with “K” Line. “As we get closer to the (International Maritime Organization) IMO 2050 decarbonization target and the prospect of stringent environmental regulations on the horizon, the maritime industry is facing a significant amount of pressure to adopt emissions-reducing and fuelsaving technologies,” said Vincent Bernatets, Airseas founder and CEO. “We have already seen other attempts to bring wind into shipping, and some have arguably been more successful than others. However, it is

34 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

starting to gain focus as we are starting to see some tangible benefits in some areas such as the [Norsepower] rotor sails on the Maersk Pelican generating an 8.2 percent fuel saving during a 12-month trial period.” Within wind, another significant development is the innovation around automation and exploitation of big data, Bernatets said. “The shipping industry needs to see wind as a modern solution that will work alongside a modern shipping industry and dispel the myth that it is an ‘outdated’ solution. To help achieve this, digitalization and automation – making wind ‘smart’ – will be a critical component.” As a “fuel agnostic” solution, wind rides above the future fuels debate and is a viable option that will work alongside whichever fuel option comes out on top, he said. “Airseas is helping owners take a positive leap forward in harnessing the power of wind as a tangible option. As well as offering long-term benefits as a bridge on the road to zero-carbon, with fuel making anything between 35 percent and 50 percent of a vessels’ operating expenditure, the wind technology can also help owners achieve significant cost-saving benefits.”

On the operational efficiency side of things, Strevens said one of the focus areas that has been of greatest benefit has been biofouling management. “We have done a lot of pioneering partnership work with companies – doing in-water hull cleaning solutions that don’t involve divers getting in the water.” These include working with ECOsubsea, which deploys an unmanned underwater vehicle to survey and clean the hull, using water jets to remove any growth. “They are in Southampton, which works well for us,” he said. It is a hub port for the company’s fleet, with most of its vessels calling two or three times a year. Wallenius Wilhelmsen has also carried out the first sea trials of a novel “hull skater” robot from coatings specialist Jotun. The system is installed on the vessel and deployed whenever needed. “It is used every few days, and because it can operate so frequently, optimal hull conditions can be maintained all the time. Following a successful trial and acceptance from ports all over the world, the first production unit is now due to be installed. Both systems can make a huge difference to the energy efficiency of the fleet, Strevens said. Digitalization is another crucial area: “We have linked up hundreds of sensors around the vessel so that the data can be beamed in real time through a satellite link into the cloud,” Strevens said. “From there we can run analytics to expose a wide variety of otherwise hidden efficiency gems.” Already the data is enabling Wallenius Wilhelmsen to identify the optimal number and loading of auxiliary engines to run for a specific electrical load requirement as well as identify the optimum amount of ballast water needed for a given set of circumstances, that include cargo loading and distribution, wave height and direction, vessel speed and dynamic rolling. With greater inputs come greater gains, meaning that achieving true sustainability in the breakbulk will be the sum of many parts. Everyone has a role – or three – to play. BB Felicity Landon is an award-winning freelance journalist specializing in the ports, shipping, transport and logistics sectors. ISSUE 5 / 2020

MARKET SPOTLIGHT

BY NAMRATA NADKARNI

SOWING GREEN SEEDS Renewables Investment Promises Stable Growth

he economic impact of Covid-19 is being felt in countries across the globe with many, including the UK, the U.S. and Thailand, announcing a recession in August. As governments outline various methods to kickstart their economies, a number of experts have postulated that investing in green and renewable technologies presents the ideal means, not only to tackle climate change, but also to generate jobs in this and supporting sectors. It will also bring about sustainable and long-lasting change to the economy. “Going forward, it’s important that countries and governments invest in infrastructure to keep their wheels going after Covid-19, as it has been a tremendous hit all around the world,” explained Wenche Nistad, CEO of Norwegian export credit guarantee agency GIEK, which has been steadily financing green technologies for more than a decade as part of its mandate to promote the country’s exports and investments by providing long-term

Wenche Nistad GIEK

Terje Borkenhagen Norsea Wind

guarantees on behalf of the Norwegian state. “We have to continue to develop renewable technologies and reduce the costs – we shouldn’t slow down, rather we should increase investments as the world is running out of time to change the energy mix. We have to hurry,” she said, noting that Norway’s long-term expertise in these niches has meant that GIEK has funded numerous projects to export

renewable technology and expertise across the globe. While many of these projects have tended to be located in Europe, which led the charge into solar, wind and tidal energy generation, many other countries have thrown their hat in the ring. There has been a surge in global interest in renewables, explains Terje Borkenhagen, CEO of Norsea Wind, which provides operations and maintenance integrated services for wind turbines and high-voltage, direct current, or HVDC, platforms that includes spares as well as marine support. “In addition to further development in Europe – UK, Germany, Netherlands etc. – political signals are signaling increased focus on offshore wind development in China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Australia. The U.S. is also launching new initiatives,” Borkenhagen said.

ATTRACTIVE INVESTMENT

DNV GL Director and renewables energy expert Michael Dodd believes that falling prices and the proven

Top: There has been a surge in global interest in renewables. CREDIT: DNV GL

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ISSUE 5 / 2020

pedigree for renewable technology are also major drivers that, combined with a greener outlook, will spur continued investment in large-scale global projects. “Renewables tech is now classed as mature technology, as it has been growing to scale over the last 20 years in Europe,” Dodd explained. And although the government subsidies that mitigated merchant risk in the early years and spurred infrastructure development have slowed to a trickle, he said renewable power energy generation in Europe is now comparable in pricing to traditional on shore power generation. By comparison, newer markets are still seeking ways to incentivize decarbonization and thus offer substantial subsidies. “We are already seeing Asia, particularly China, overtake Europe for onshore renewables in terms of wattage generated,” he said, adding that even the U.S. has displayed a sharp increase in generated renewable energy, in spite of the current political turmoil. There had been concerns that investment for these technologies would dry up as economies contract, particularly since the closure of manufacturing and other energy intensive sectors has eroded global electricity demand over the past year – and there is uncertainty about how soon previous consumption levels will resume. However, Dodd pointed out that as renewables are still subsidized to an extent, and in some cases are eligible for tax incentives, there is still some shielding of investment price and so these sectors are still viewed as attractive to investors. Furthermore, the long lead time for these projects will mean that many of the projects that will require heavy-lift and breakbulk services are already financed and have been through several rounds of approvals prior to the pandemic. “We have not seen any notable delays to any renewables projects so far – for us, it’s business as usual,” Nistad said. The agency is actively looking for new green projects in Norwegian businesses. “I am expecting an

increase in projects in the next two to three years.” GIEK is not the only party seeking to increase its exposure to green technology. Dodd pointed out that some large investment funds have viewed Covid-19 as an opportunity to pick up a bargain by buying into projects that have seen their value eroded by the pandemic. “There is such a quantity of capital and willingness for capital to flow, there has been a relatively insulated effect from Covid-19,” he explained. “There has been a small slow down, but not a closing off of the market – and recent reports are that the slowdown is starting to ease.”

STEADY FINANCE GROWTH

With most traditional sources of European finance – such as pension and investment funds, utility providers including EDF and Ørsted, and energy companies like BP and Shell – already counting renewables as part of their portfolios, Dodd believed that the financial foundations are already in place for steady growth. “As decarbonization comes up the government agenda, most big players are moving away from fossil fuels towards greener and cleaner investments,” he said, citing Black Rock and Macquarie as high-profile examples of investors leading this trend.

He anticipates this growth to continue at a steady pace over the coming years, in line with the upward curve in renewable energy production that DNV GL has been mapping over the last decade. Although the pandemic may slow the pace of uptake, the expert is still predicting an acceleration in green projects in the next two to three years, both in mature markets like the North Sea and in new markets like Asia. The group’s Energy Transition Outlook 2019 predicted that “a wide range of policy objectives – such as climate goals, air quality, health, job creation, energy security – will drive changes in the energy mix” leading renewables to take on the lion’s share of household energy supply. “By 2050, we predict that 80 percent of household demand globally will be serviced by renewables including solar, hydro and even a small amount of biomass. We anticipate about 36,000 terawatt hours of energy generated from solar and wind, which is 20 times more than today,” Dodd said. As a result of the UK’s ambition to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the country is likely to continue as a trailblazer when it comes to green energy infrastructure projects. The latest UK Oil and Gas Authority’s Energy Integration Report, published There has been a small slowdown in investment in renewables projects, but not a closing off of the market. CREDIT: DNV GL

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 37

The drive for greater efficiencies is pushing up the size of turbine blades. CREDIT: NORSEA

in early August, shows that renewables – including hydrogen – will play a vital role in the country’s energy mix. “The current offshore windfarms project pipeline accounts for over 20 GW of additional capacity therefore trebling existing wind power,” a spokesperson said. “Ambitions of wind power growth are as high as 75 GW by 2050 to support net zero. This level of growth would require greater coordination between wind power and oil and gas sectors, as there will be much more overlap as well as infrastructure sharing opportunities. We see the two sectors already discussing early opportunities in the Central North Sea.”

INFRASTRUCTURE TRANSPORT NEEDS

As renewables play a larger role in total wattage produced, not only will new projects come into play, but existing infrastructure will need to be replaced. Breakbulk and heavylift operators can expect to transport larger turbine blades, heavy battery storage units and more. “We are seeing bigger wind farms, 38 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

but we are also seeing more energy generated per turbine,” said Asbjørn Halsebakke, a general manager for Finnish technology company The Switch. Achieving this power boost will require larger equipment. “We are going bigger in size: bigger turbines for more power. We can see that the development of the blade technology is being pushed, so we as generator makers are also being pushed to become more efficient and provide more power to the grid. “Items are getting heavier and, in some cases, they are getting a bit larger – so this may mean more for the heavy-lift and breakbulk sector,” he predicted. The Switch has already had to invest in a bigger crane for its factory to lift its heavier generators. He believed that the UK and Denmark are likely to see infrastructure upgrades to wind farms in the near future, making these hot spots for European breakbulk and heavy-lift players. However, in a salutary warning, Dodd, who highlighted Australia and China as locations that are making notable infrastructural investments, warned against expect-

ing long-distance transportation contracts. “To scale up the offshore wind market, you need local manufacturing as this reduces supply chain costs,” he said. “Some components will Asbjørn certainly need to Helsebakke be imported or exported – that The Switch will always happen – but as we have already seen, the more mature markets in Europe have domestic production facilities that are used in that supply chain.” Accordingly, he anticipates that expertise in setting up and scaling renewable projects is the commodity that will be most exported. BB Namrata Nadkarni is a Londonbased freelance journalist with 17 years of experience covering maritime, offshore, ports and the logistics sector. ISSUE 5 / 2020

For more information contact: Eastern Lift Truck Co., Inc.

ermin T / t r o for Seap dustry s r o t c a Your Tr r and In e t n e C tion Distribu

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LOGISTICS PERSPECTIVE

BY THOMAS TIMLEN

BEYOND TRANSPORTATION Carriers are Blurring Wind Services Lines

taying one step ahead of the ever-growing logistics needs of the renewables supply chain can be a daunting and at times thankless task. Yet, for companies up to the challenge, there are some thankless tasks that evolve into opportunities for business expansion and sustainability. Despite falling oil prices and the consequences of a global pandemic, the renewables supply chain appears to be creating such benefits for stakeholders across the board. 40 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

“Renewables in general and offshore wind in particular seem completely decoupled from the fall in oil prices,” Offshore Heavy Transport CEO Torgeir E. Ramstad told Breakbulk. Offshore Heavy Transport, or OHT, is increasingly involved with installation works while maintaining its core heavy-lift transport services. “Our timing is tied to the development in the offshore wind market and an identified gap in vessel capacity which is capable of handling the future generations of turbines and foundations.

“We don’t see this as a transition from heavy-lift transport,” Randstad continued. “We remain committed to the heavy transportation market, as owners and operators of five heavy transport vessels. In relation to our entry into the offshore wind installation market, these are new vessel concepts which have been designed specifically for installing foundations and turbines for the offshore wind sector. Therefore we have added additional vessels and additional expertise to a new market for OHT.” ISSUE 5 / 2020

and sea transport. The company is involved with the production of future, larger tidal turbines with rotor diameters between 20 and 24 meters, which in addition to generating electricity, will also generate additional future demand for heavy-lift and project cargo transportation services to destinations in the UK, France, the Channel Islands, Asia, Australia and Canada. Returning to the most visible renewable sector, wind, the deployment of turbines continues at a steady pace with turbines continuing to grow in size. “The wind industry does provide a great amount of work for project cargo transporters, which to many players is seen as a blessing when other sectors, especially oil and gas, have cooled off,” Christian Hoffmann, head of marketing and corporate communications at SAL, told Breakbulk. “Tonnage-wise the industry is still able to face demand, but as unit parts grow bigger it does put constraints on the supply side simply due to handling abilities, especially [for] the transportation of foundations such as monopiles, transition pieces and jackets [which] puts greater demand on vessel and operator capabilities.”

SAL’s Svenja loading transition pieces in Tees. CREDIT: SAL

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

The increased deployment of tidal turbines provides opportunities for all segments of the transport sector, conventional, heavy-lift and breakbulk alike. At the larger end of the spectrum are turbines produced by companies such as Edinburgh, UK-based Simec Atlantis, who recently manufactured a tidal turbine with a rotor diameter of 18 meters in Wuhan for installation in China’s Zhoushan archipelago, an operation involving specialized road

Christian Hoffmann SAL

Greg McComas BNSF

The situation is similar for moving turbines on land, as Greg McComas, BNSF Railway’s manager for customer support, explained. “We have seen continued strength in our wind-rail transportation volumes, and believe this will continue into next year. Alongside hauling renewable energy components, there is a direct correlation with grid construction

components, such as transformers moving by rail via North American production or port breakbulk to regional growth areas. “Modifications to wind energy equipment and other energy components provide unique challenges for rail transportation providers, given the size and capacity of rail networks. Cooperation with our customers and service providers is paramount to develop creative design solutions to move equipment safely and efficiently through our network. These solutions often involve proprietary knowledge and revolve around the use of our versatile 89-foot flatcar,” McComas said.

DEMANDS ON THE FLEET

The dual challenges of larger units and increased demand for their transport raise the question of whether fleet expansion and refitting of existing vessels will be required. At SAL, the feeling is that more specialized vessels will be needed. “Refitting existing tonnage will in our opinion only be sensible to a very limited extent,” Hoffman said. “Newbuilds that have been carefully designed to match the requirements of both today’s turbines, but also those of tomorrow, must be on the drawing boards of vessel operators if they are to meet future demand.” Hoffman said SAL is seeing limitations on how many units a vessel is able to accommodate in one voyage, particularly with respect to blades or monopile foundations, but also in terms of handling capabilities of the largest nacelle units, which weigh more than 600 tons. This limits the number of multipurpose vessels that can handle the load. “So when we talk about units which require greater technical abilities, then there are still limitations to the number of capable operators,” he said. On the question of available capacity, Francisco Rodrigues, Mammoet’s segment lead for offshore wind, added repositioning to the list of challenges ahead. “With the increased demand for foundations and turbines in emerging offshore wind countries, it is currently unclear where the current capacity www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 41

LOGISTICS PERSPECTIVE

large contracts for transport of wind turbine parts in 2021 and 2022, so it is clear to say that wind is our biggest revenue driver right now,” Hoffman added.

INSTALLATION ROLES

SAL has designed and deployed special lifting tools for wind turbine components. CREDIT: SAL

will be required to support the market, as it will also depend on the demand from other markets such as oil and gas, petrochemical and others beyond renewables.” He expects that heavy transport equipment will need to be relocated globally to support the market while a local supply chain is being set up. SAL has a strong presence in the transportation of large monopiles and transition pieces. It has designed and deployed special lifting tools as well as specialized storage and sea fasten-

ing solutions to create a “technically efficient” solution that fits the transport scope and flow required by its customers, Hoffman said. More recently, it has moved into the offshore installation space with its dynamic positioning vessel Lone, which undertook the installation of a temporary subsea template last year in connection with an Asian offshore wind project. “We have more offshore installation works in the pipeline in the months to come, as we have also secured some

PUSHING BEYOND THE PANDEMIC Turbine producer Vestas, who released its financial results for the second quarter in August, performed strongly despite the Covid-19 pandemic, growing its revenue by 67 percent compared with the same quarter in 2019. Service continued to grow with high margins in the quarter and played a key role in ensuring stable and renewable energy supply during lockdowns across the globe. Of note, the value of Vestas’ combined backlog of wind turbine orders and service agreements stands at €35.1 billion, an increase of €3.6 billion compared with the year-earlier period. Mammoet has also seen continued growth despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. “It looks like despite the pandemic situation, offshore wind continues to thrive and projects with consent are proceeding without major delays,” Mammoet’s Francisco Rodrigues said. “The same applies to the new countries looking to add offshore wind to their energy transition program. In Mammoet we see a huge demand for large equipment

42 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

coming up with the increase in size of turbines, foundations and floating structures, especially after 2025.” Offshore Heavy Transport, or OHT, has looked at the pandemic and oil prices and determined that despite these factors, the renewables sector remains attractive. “There has over quite some time been a general overcapacity in the global shipbuilding market,” OHT CEO Torgeir E. Ramstad said. “Due to Covid-19 and the fall in oil prices, many owners are hesitant to make investment decisions of any significance, leading to a waitand-see situation. We have made our decision on the merits of the offshore wind Torgeir E. markets more Ramstad than trying to get a cheap deal.” OHT

Carriers are also, in some cases, becoming installers, blurring the lines between transport providers and renewable energy producers. Take the involvement of Norway’s OHT in the Dogger Bank Wind Farm as an example. The foundations needed for Dogger Bank Wind Farm off the east coast of Yorkshire, UK – said to be the world’s biggest offshore wind farm – will be among the largest foundations ever used for offshore wind. Installation is scheduled between 2022 and 2023. To transport and install the foundations, OHT ordered the specialist newbuild vessel Alfa Lift, which is under construction at CMHI’S shipyard in China, with options for additional vessels. Alfa Lift will transport the monopile foundations and transition pieces to the Dogger Bank offshore site and install them in water depths up to 35 meters, utilizing the vessel’s 3,000-tonne crane. The Dogger Bank Wind Farm is being developed by SSE Renewables and Equinor, with first power expected in 2023. Mammoet has also gone beyond transport to take on installation. It has expanded its traditional wind activities to include turbine planning and design for both inshore and offshore wind farms, which led to transport and installation of the highest-ever tower section as well as the heaviest nacelle. In another example, Swire Blue Ocean has been selected by MHI Vestas Offshore Wind for the transportation and installation of wind turbine generators at the Seagreen offshore wind farm 27 kilometers off the east coast of Scotland, UK, in the offshore wind market’s deepest waters. The project will be Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm upon completion, covering the energy needs of about 1 million homes. The turbine installations are expected to commence in the second half of 2021.

MOVING PRODUCTION FACILITIES

The increasing unit sizes of renewable equipment has not only raised questions regarding transportation providers’ capabilities, but also begs the question as to whether or not there will ISSUE 5 / 2020

LOGISTICS PERSPECTIVE

be a trend towards more near- or on-site fabrication. In Rodrigues’ view, this, and other innovations, will be a necessity. “In the short term, and until the local supply chain is ready to manufacture these larger turbines and foundations, the developers, EPCs (engineering procurement and construction companies) and supply chain will have to innovate their logistics plans to keep the same levelized cost of energy and bring projects forward as planned. In the long term, as part of the local content requirements, and providing a clear pathway towards offshore wind developments, we should see more and more local investments in fabrication facilities and local job creation.” An example of manufacturing moving closer to installation sites is Taiwan’s Formosa 1 Phase 2 project, a joint venture between Mammoet and Giant Heavy Machinery Services, which has started working with Sing Da Marine Structure Corp., a marine engineering subsidiary of China Steel Corp., to provide assembly, transportation and load-out services for Taiwan’s first locally fabricated wind turbine jacket foundations, on site at its manufacturing facility. Prospects for continued opportunities are echoed by Liang Xuan, South America general manager for China’s wind turbine producer Goldwind. Xuan told Breakbulk that as renewable energy has become the relatively lowest cost source of energy globally, this has helped to drive Goldwind’s global expansion. As such, renewable energy development is no longer dependent on government support, but is growing naturally on its own merits due to its current economic competitiveness. Ramstad agreed with Xuan’s views: “The biggest factor which is driving down the levelized cost of energy in offshore wind is the increasing size of the wind turbine generators, or WTGs. It is largely this cost reduction and the development of offshore wind technology which has resulted in the market growing exponentially on a global scale. The increasing size of the WTGs and in-turn foundations, together with the growing size of the market, has resulted in a necessity for larger and more capable vessels to be developed. It is this need that we are responding to. We are not adding capacity to an existing caliber of 44 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

SAL’s Svenja discharges monopiles to installation vessel Innovation in Vlissingen. CREDIT: SAL

Wind turbine components in transit on board BNSF Railway. CREDIT: BNSF

SAL’s Trina loads nacelles in Cuxhaven. CREDIT: SAL

vessels, we are adding a capability which is lacking in the market and essential for the growth of the industry as the next generation of WTGs come in to play.” The wide range of equipment sizes and shapes found in the renewable equipment sector, all requiring transport from place of manufacture to place of installation, bodes well for all transport providers, with opportunities for heavy-lift and project cargo companies to expand their roles, and capabilities, beyond transportation into installation and design as renewable energy solutions are further expanded. However, for the larger units,

there are formidable barriers to entry, as Ramstad pointed out: “Key to any player in offshore wind is a solid organization and track record, with fully developed processes, procedures and governing systems. If you don’t have this, you will not be pre-qualified to bid directly towards the end clients.” BB Thomas Timlen is a Singapore-based freelance researcher, writer and spokesperson with 28 years of experience addressing the regulatory and operational issues that impact all sectors of the maritime industry. ISSUE 5 / 2020

CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

REGIONAL REVIEW

ESTABLISHING THE WIND DIRECTION

Europe Poised to Publicize Offshore Ambitions

BY CARLY FIELDS

roject cargo movers hoping to secure pipeline work in Europe could be in for a windfall before the year is out. Clean energy is seen as the savior of the trading bloc as it emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic, and a seminal document due for publication in the fourth quarter will set out a clear roadmap for offshore wind requirements – and consequently project cargo needs – in Europe’s waters. The European Union’s strategy on offshore renewable energy will lay out how best to exploit and scale-up offshore renewables to reach climate neutrality by 2050, according to the European Commission. It estimates that between 240 and 450 gigawatts, or GW, of offshore wind power is needed by 2050 to keep temperature rises below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Electricity is anticipated to represent 46 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

at least 50 percent of the total energy mix in 2050 and 30 percent of future electricity demand will be supplied by offshore wind. The strategy, in the public consultation phase until Sept. 24, will be published as part of the European Green Deal. A WindEurope spokesperson said the message from the EU is clear: “By 2050 they want to be carbon neutral and that basically means increasing renewable electricity. “To meet the Paris Agreement 1.5 C target we will need to achieve 400 GW minimum of offshore wind minimum by 2050, which is about 20 times what we have today. This is significant because when projects are complex they are quite big in scale, and they take quite a while to plan and to build. On average, we say around about eight years for bigger offshore wind projects from the beginning to the end. “2050 might seem far away, but everything that’s decided today has

quite a significant impact on that development. The industry is ready to take this forward and to scale technology, we just have to see how we can deliver on those capacities in the most efficient and cheapest way.” The strategy is expected to echo the European Commission’s call for offshore wind as a key energy source for the EU to reach its climate goals, added Alexander Dobrowen Fløtre, vice president and product manager offshore wind, Energy Service Research at Rystad Energy. He believes that storage will be another pillar in the strategy, with a roadmap on how to integrate hydrogen/battery infrastructure with offshore renewables. All told, the strategy is expected to demonstrate “strong political support” for the continued growth of offshore wind, he said. “That means that there will be more infrastructure needed, more jobs and an increased demand for heavy-lift installation vessels, among others.” ISSUE 5 / 2020

PLUG AND PLAN

WindEurope advocates for wind energy policies in Europe on behalf of more than 400 member companies. Earlier this year, it published a position paper on its ambitions for the EU strategy. Of the 10 points that Wind Europe listed in its paper, its spokesperson highlighted two: more integrated and more coordinated maritime spatial planning, and grid development and connections. On the first, Europe’s seas are used by a range of different stakeholders, for example fisheries, military and tourism. So the wind industry needs to find an intelligent way to distribute the existing sea space, and to make sure that enough space is available for future wind farm deployment. On the second, “hybrid” connections could be the lynchpin to largescale wind farm development in European waters. Traditionally, projects have connected to the mainland through one feed into the onshore grid. There is “no intelligent distribution,” said the spokesperson. Each single wind farm is independent from the next. This has to change. “In the future, we see 20 times the installations of offshore wind that we have today, so we will need a much more connected offshore grid.” One option would be for different wind parks to share a connection to the mainland; another would be for one project to feed into the electricity grids of more than one country, the socalled “hybrid” model. WindEurope’s spokesperson pointed out that there is already one project set up in Denmark that feeds into the grids of Germany and Denmark at the same time. “We might see this even more in the future,” he said. “We just have to make sure that we get the right regulations in place, because as you can imagine different countries are not always totally aligned when it comes to the regulations on grid connection and on levies and other taxes.” If this could be ironed out, the potential for supporting wind farm development in Europe is vast. This approach could also support developments on a scale not yet considered.

FLOATING ASSET POTENTIAL

It is not just bottom-fixed units that breakbulk and project cargo movers can get excited about. There is also the prospect of floating offshore wind. Water depth is a key factor here: up to 70-80-meter water depth is viable for fixed wind turbines. Beyond that, floating becomes much more cost effective. WindEurope anticipates that a quarter of the 400 GW needed by 2050 could come from floating farms, with southern France, Spain, Portugal and potentially Greece all countries to watch. Rystad Energy’s Fløtre also sees great potential for floating offshore wind in Europe. “We are still in the pilot/proof-of-concept stage when it comes to floating wind, and Europe has been the base for the majority of these projects. Towards 2030 we expect to see gradually larger projects, which will help the market reach the needed scale for costs to come down. As such, we forecast that an uptick in floating capacity deployment will come post-2030, as the sector becomes increasingly cost competitive.” Floating wind in Europe is also expected to unlock wind potential in the northern parts of Europe, such as Scotland and Norway, and the Atlantic coast of France. Offshore wind – fixed or floating – is seen as a solution to the red tape stifling development of onshore wind development in Europe. Take Germany, which has ambitious expansion targets but is struggling to secure permits for onshore wind farms. “Onshore projects there can take up to five years or longer to be permitted – this is quite a problem,” the WindEurope spokesperson said. Poland, meanwhile, is expected to have its first offshore wind bill by the end of the year. “They want to become the largest wind energy producer in the Baltic Sea, so this is definitely a market to look out for.” He also highlights ambitious plans from the UK, especially for Ireland. Fløtre expected strong growth from France over the next two or three years. Things are also moving in

Floating wind will unlock wind potential in northern parts of Europe. CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

2050 Vision: 450GW of Offshore Wind in Europe Country / Area Capacity (GW) UK 80 Netherlands 60 France (Excl.Mediterranean) 40 Germany 36 Denmark 35 Norway 30 Poland 28 Ireland 22 Sweden 20 Finland 15 Belgium 6 Lithuania 4 Latvia 3 Estonia 1 Total 380 France (Mediterranean) 17 Rest of Mediterranean 31 Spain 13 Portugal 9 Total 70 Grand Total

450

Nearly 4GW was sanctioned in Europe during Q2 alone, almost 3 times the total for 2019

1,399

2019 Total Source: Rystad Energy

3,950

Q2 2020 Total

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 47

REGIONAL REVIEW

WIND OVERTAKING O&G CAPITAL EXPENDITURE Capital expenditure in offshore wind in Europe is expected to match that in upstream oil and gas in 2021, and surpass it in 2022, according to data from Rystad Energy. In 2015, capex in Europe’s offshore wind sector broke through the US$10 billion mark and has stayed within a bracket of US$10 billion to US$15 billion per year since then. Levels are expected to rise from about US$11.1

billion in 2019 to about US$13.8 billion in 2020, US$18.2 billion in 2021 and more than US$22 billion in 2022. At the same time, capex in upstream offshore oil and gas in Europe is expected to decline from more than US$25 billion in 2019 to less than US$17 billion in 2022. “That effect is to a large extent driven by firm investment decisions on the offshore wind side – and the

Annual Offshore Oil & Gas Capex* vs Offshore Wind Capex** Europe US$ bn 60

Offshore upstream O&G Offshore wind

50 40 30 20 10 0

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

*Exploration expenditure excluded **Forecast takes into account capital expenditures for projects with start-up post 2022 Source: Rystad Energy research and analysis

Sweden, and Spanish multinational electric utility company Iberdrola has positioned itself with the acquisition of stakes in eight offshore wind developments; Ireland is accelerating key offshore wind developments, he added.

PLANNING WINDOW

Europe’s wind industry has 30 years to deliver on the 2050 strategy, and that includes having the port infrastructure available to handle the increase in cargoes and the scale of those cargoes. WindEurope said that the ports of Rotterdam and Oostende have become members of the association because they recognize the challenge ahead. Manufacturers and logistics providers also face the challenge of scale-up. Fløtre said to expect some bottlenecks in the installation/ 48 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

heavy-lift segment. “But there is a large influx of service companies that have traditionally served the oil and gas space, that are now transitioning towards offshore wind as their key focus market,” he added. But who is going to take the investment plunge first when it comes to supporting transportation and logistics for the burgeoning wind farm sector in Europe? Should the industry invest in transportation assets before commitments on the parks, or do developers need to commit to the building of wind parks first to guarantee work for the asset providers? Here, National Energy and Climate Plans, or NECPs, are excellent instruments for guidance, the WindEurope spokesperson said. The EU has demanded that member states submit NECPs which map out their

postponement of investments on the oil and gas side,” Rystad Energy’s Alexander Dobrowen Fløtre explained. “As Covid-19 hit the markets, in addition to the crude supply war, we have seen large cuts in 2020 budgets among E&Ps.” The delaying of final investment decisions has pulled down Rystad Energy’s forecast investments for offshore oil and gas in Europe. At the same time, offshore wind developers have demonstrated strong commitment throughout the pandemic with almost 4 gigawatts, or GW, of capacity sanctioned during the second quarter of 2020 alone, compared with 1.4 GW in 2019 as a whole. “When we move further out towards 2025, the investment levels are less firm, but both developers and nations seem committed to continue the strong growth,” Fløtre said. Historically, Europe has been the key market for offshore wind development, accounting for almost 80 percent of global installed capacity at the end of 2019. While Rystad Energy expects strong growth in China, Southeast Asia and the U.S., Europe is expected to maintain its No. 1 position through 2025 in terms of installed capacity.

own ambitions for renewable energy deployment for the upcoming 10 years. In these there are very clear auction schedules and plans of how much capacity will be developed per country. Take the example of France: “They can already say that there will be up to 28 floating offshore wind tenders and the capacity for each. There might be some delay, or something could go wrong, but in general these give very good visibility on future projects. The supply chain can really take those NECPs and see which markets are of interest and where to invest,” WindEurope said. BB Carly Fields has reported on the shipping industry for the past 20 years, covering bunkers and broking and much in between. ISSUE 5 / 2020

ENERGY UPDATE

BLOWING AWAY PANDEMIC BLUES BY SIMON WEST

Renewables Fill Recovery Card for South America

he Colombian crime thriller Birds of Passage, a shortlisted entry for best foreign language film at last year’s Academy Awards, takes an unflinching look at the country’s nascent marijuana trade, played out in the northern coastal department of La Guajira in the 1960s and 1970s. The flat, desert landscape provides a backdrop to the brutal business of trafficking, as local tribal groups conspire with visitors from the U.S. to export drugs. Birds of Passage put La Guajira on the map for movie buffs; two years on from the film’s release, the department is taking center stage again, this time as the protagonist in Colombia’s green energy revolution. In a bid to lure much-needed investment and tackle its dependence on hydropower, the Andean nation is readying for a 50-fold rise in installed wind and solar capacity from 50 megawatts, or MW, in 2018 to more 50 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

than 2.5 gigawatts, or GW, by 2022, by which time the share of non-hydro renewable energies in the energy mix will have jumped from 1 percent to more than 12 percent, according to the energy ministry. The plans will also help Colombia – as part of its Paris Agreement commitments – to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by the end of the decade. Nine onshore wind farms and five solar projects that came out top in recent power auctions are slated to start up in 2022. Developers include Colombian firms Celsia, Isagen and Empresas Publicas de Medellin, Spainbased EDP Renovaveis and Italy’s Enel Group. While the photovoltaic plants will be scattered across four departments, the wind facilities – of more interest to project cargo – will all be located in La Guajira, home to Colombia’s sole operational wind farm, EPM’s 19.5 MW Jepirachi facility.

WIND PROMISE

La Guajira’s emergence as a renewable hotspot is partly down to meteorology: onshore wind speed averages nine meters per second at a height of 80 meters, or twice the global average, the energy ministry has said. Geography also gives the department an edge. “It is one of the easiest sites for delivering components,” said Javier Rojas, head of logistics and road infrastructure at Transportes Montejo, a Colombia-based breakbulk specialist that transported equipment for Jepirachi. “If you arrive at [the Colombian Caribbean ports of] Santa Marta, Puerto Brisa or Bolivar, the locations where the parks are being installed are very close. The roads and topography are also easier to navigate than they are in more central regions. Transporting an 80-meter turbine blade to the center of the country is very complicated.” ISSUE 5 / 2020

Given its potential, further expansion in La Guajira is likely: Colombian environmental magazine Semana Sostenible quotes officials as saying that 65 world-scale wind farms could be installed by 2031, comprising more than 2,600 turbines that would feed 6.5 GW of extra capacity to the national grid. The prospect of so many projects coming online should take some of the sting out of what has been the most challenging business environment in living memory, with an economy set to shrink by 5.5 percent this year. “The impact of Covid-19 on project cargo transport has been very big,” Rojas said. “Cargo has continued to move, but it has fallen significantly. In Colombia we are used to having 200 vehicles on the road working flat out. Now we have half that fleet, with the remainder in parking lots. Little by little though, it is starting to pick up.”

GOVERNMENT SUPPORT

But delays are inevitable: the completion, for example, of public consultations that developers carry out with tribal communities whose lands are located close to proposed installation sites has been all but impossible during strict lockdown. Such consultations – which can drag on for months in Colombia – are a key part of environmental regulator Anla’s evaluation process for energy projects. In a bid to allay investor concerns, the government has included 27 renewable energy and transmission projects in its two-year economic reactivation plan: the nine wind farms in La Guajira, the solar projects, three geothermal plants, one hydroelectric dam and nine transmission lines have all been deemed strategic assets. Those projects will call for investments of more than 16 trillion pesos – about US$4.2 billion – and generate 55,000 jobs, the government said. Among plans to speed up the commissioning process is a new measure allowing Colombia’s private ports – and not just the big public terminals – to handle imported components destined for wind and solar plants.

The nine onshore wind farms approved in Colombia’s recent power auctions will all be located in the northern coastal department of La Guajira. CREDIT: JORGE MAHECHA

The measure will allow companies to choose from a wider array of ports, reducing logistical bottlenecks, the transport ministry said in a May filing. “For us, the renewables industry is very important, with plenty of opportunities yet to come,” said Carlos Rodriguez, commercial manager at Medellin-based shipping agency Multiport. “Companies are taking advantage of such potential to enhance their economic recovery plans and are currently studying all logistics related to receiving and unloading at terminals on Colombia’s northern coast and transporting to job sites,” Rodriguez said.

SOUTH AMERICA HEAVYWEIGHT

Colombia is not the only country in the region to beef up its focus on renewables. The undisputed heavyweight is Brazil. Enjoying one of the best wind resources in the world, in just a decade Latin America’s largest economy has expanded its installed wind capacity from 600 MW to 16 GW. Based on completed auctions and signed contracts, capacity is expected to rise to 24.2 GW by 2024, according to wind energy association ABEeolica.

About 80 percent of Brazil’s 637 wind farms are located in the country’s northeast, a region blessed with nearperfect conditions for powering giant turbines. “Brazil is now reaching maturity in terms of understanding the needs of the wind sector,” said Felipe Ferreira, Brazil country manager at Germanybased wind turbine maker Nordex. “As examples of that, we can mention the existence of a satisfactory local supply chain, stable financing conditions and reasonable logistics.” Although Covid-19 restrictions have hit supply chains and transport, Roberto Prida, onshore managing director for turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa in Brazil, downplayed the longer-term impact of the pandemic. “There may be some variations in demand that will mainly affect auctions for the regulated market, however the competitiveness of the source makes us think that volumes during the next few months and years will continue to be very important. We continue with our plans to manufacture locally the latest technology of our company, the Siemens Gamesa 5.X onshore platform, which reflects both our appreciation of the market and our commitment to it.” www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 51

“Wind power has already proven itself to be a driver of economic growth in Latin America, bringing in US$8.9 billion in investments for the region in 2019 alone”

– Ramon Fiestas, GWEC Latin America

EPM’s 19.5 MW Jepirachi facility is Colombia’s sole operational wind farm. CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

CHILE’S GREEN GOALS

Chile, one of the region’s green pioneers, has pledged to generate 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and to become carbon-neutral by 2050, targets that will demand plenty of new construction work as the country starts to phase out its coal-fired power stations. Chile already houses close to 2.4 GW of installed wind capacity, according to the National Energy Commission, or CNE. Large-scale PV development is also possible, due to the Atacama Desert region in the north of the country, which boasts the highest solar irradiation in the world. As of June of this year, 16 wind energy projects with a combined 1.84 GW of new clean capacity were under construction, with work slated for completion through March 2024. Ricardo Raineri, a former Chilean energy minister and special economic advisor at the Washington-based Associated Universities, said Chile’s environmental goals were well within its grasp. “The country boasts excellent conditions for the deployment of non-conventional renewable energies, 52 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

with their prices falling significantly over the last decade. Today these energies are competitive, with lower investment costs than other forms of energy.” Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay and Costa Rica have also made significant strides in green energy generation, but Latin America still lags behind renewable powerhouses such as China and the U.S. The International Renewable Energy Agency, or Irena, said in a report earlier this year that accelerating the deployment of renewable energy in Latin America and the Caribbean could create more than 3 million jobs by 2050. Investors could enjoy returns of US$3 to US$8 on every dollar invested in the sector, the report said.

TAPPING RENEWABLE POTENTIAL

As the region’s oil and gas industries struggle amid rock-bottom prices and demand, and with governments poised to spend big on post-pandemic stimulus programs, a window of opportunity has emerged for renewables to seize more market share.

The Global Wind Energy Council, or GWEC, said that actions taken by governments would dictate the pace of economic revival and the energy transition. “Wind power has already proven itself to be a driver of economic growth in Latin America, bringing in US$8.9 billion in investments for the region in 2019 alone,” Ramon Fiestas, president at GWEC Latin America, told Breakbulk. “Accelerating the deployment of wind and other renewable energy is therefore key to powering an economic recovery, especially in Latin America where robust wind energy supply chains already exist. However, the Covid-19 crisis has shaken economies and disrupted supply chains in the region, and it is therefore crucial that governments restore a certain investment environment so that countries can take advantage of the economic benefits wind power has to offer.” BB Colombia-based Simon West is a freelance journalist specializing in energy and biofuels news and market movements in the Americas. ISSUE 5 / 2020

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PROFILE

BY LORI MUSSER

FOUR DECADES’ WORTH A Conversation with Jack Futcher as he Passes on the Reins at Bechtel

echtel Group Inc.’s Jack Futcher has made his mark, helping governments and industries build four decades’ worth of critical infrastructure around the world. In his own words, every project he has worked on has been “a career highlight,” as has every role he has had in the company, throughout his entire 40-year career. “What drives me is all the things that I’ve not yet been able to get done,” he tells Breakbulk in an exclusive interview. Engineering, construction and project management behemoth Bechtel reckons it has logged 25,000 projects in

160 countries on all seven continents. In his role as president and chief operating officer, and in prior roles at Bechtel, Futcher has been a part of a great many of those projects. He plans to retire at the end of 2020, having passed on the reins as COO to Craig Albert who previously ran the company’s infrastructure business unit. Futcher serves as the company’s vice chairman until the end of this year and afterwards will remain as a non-executive director on the company’s board, helping to guide Bechtel’s future endeavors. Bechtel was established in 1898 and although large by any measure, Futcher says that isn’t what’s important: “Our

goal has always been to be the best, not the biggest. Size is an outcome based on performance for our customers. When you’re the best, being the biggest takes care of itself.” Futcher said a key corporate strength is that Bechtel is populated from bottom to top with high-quality people. “Bechtel leaders embody our values and culture and set great examples for ethics, integrity, fairness and excellence.”

ADDRESSING CHALLENGES Bechtel serves a diverse group of markets, including infrastructure; nuclear, security and environmental;

A big lift ship loads an immense module ready for shipment to a remote project site. CREDIT: BECHTEL

54 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

ISSUE 5 / 2020

oil, gas and chemicals; and mining and metal markets. There is always some oscillation in these markets, and while some are down, others are growing. While Futcher is confident in the company’s outlook, Bechtel and fellow engineering, procurement and construction companies have a lot to contend with in 2020 and beyond. “I believe the biggest challenge the EPC market and world is facing is the uncertainty around the present pandemic. How long will it last? Will a vaccine be found? When? How long will it take to administer?” Futcher said. And while herculean efforts are underway the world over to develop a vaccine in record time, “in the meantime, we all must adjust to a new norm,” he says. “This is easier said than done when it comes to our customers making huge investments in mega jobs. However, we can look at every crisis from the standpoint of opportunities, though this one is hard as so many have lost their lives over the past several months. “From a global logistics perspective, as companies are faced with a reduced workforce, I think you will see more companies contracting out logistics instead of self-performing, which creates risk,” he continues. Traditionally, Bechtel Global Logistics, or BGL, has self-performed the marine chartering and multi-project acquisition evaluation for global freight forwarding for the entire company. “Maintaining this excellence for Bechtel will continue to be unique to the way we deliver our projects,” Futcher said. BGL, created in 1997, is large scale, with expenditures in logistics services as a portion of the US$16 billion that the company spends in procurement annually. “We have many strategic partners that offer logistics services, but our direct self-perform model ensures that in addition to cost, we put safety, schedule and predictability as priorities,” Futcher said. Having “in-house” logistics on this scale is not typical, but Bechtel’s multiple business units globally have similar logistics needs, so forming BGL made

“Think of logistics as your chosen profession and commit yourself to be the best in the profession.” – Jack Futcher, Bechtel

sense even though it was somewhat contrary to the company’s traditional decentralized approach to managing project activities. So, instead of having every project “doing their own deals,” Bechtel deploys BGL to seek economies of scale and leverage, using in-house expertise to benefit multiple projects. This integration of BGL is an acknowledged differentiator in the EPC world. It can provide a unified and consistent approach to supporting engineering in the design phase and to delivering to construction to facilitate the installation schedule. “Using the commercial and technical excellence of the people of BGL, our projects can focus on building complex facilities with confidence that their material and equipment will be delivered safely when needed. The projects

trust BGL to address and mitigate risks through solid, long-term relationships with our carriers and various parties across the supply chain. We feel this engagement is unprecedented, providing a lot of value for our customers,” Futcher said.

GROWTH PLANS

Bechtel’s core business is engineering, procurement and construction, which, Futcher said, will continue to grow and expand across the board for the company. Specific to logistics, he said that Bechtel will work to maintain its core talent during challenging times, focusing on technical excellence and commercial awareness. BGL will continue to support all its businesses and potentially expand beyond marine chartering and freight forwarding to ensure safety and quality meets its standards. www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 55

knowledge and best practices enabling Bechtel’s sustainability to evolve.” That means Bechtel’s sustainability objectives do not rest with a single individual or function. The company takes a “whole-of-enterprise” approach that integrates colleagues, as well as policies, processes, procedures and programs. “At the local levels, sustainability issues and impacts vary depending on where the project is located,” he said. Whereas managing sustainability on a project is led by the project manager in close coordination with front-line managers, including engineering, procurement, construction, ES&H (environment, safety and health), and community engagement.

FUTCHER STYLE

Barge-mounted oil field modules sail toward the Golden Gate Bridge. CREDIT: BECHTEL

In the renewables arena, which Bechtel has been involved with for more than two decades, Futcher recognized the global shift toward cleaner energy, and made special note of the Ivanpah solar electric plant in California’s Mojave Desert, which is the largest solar thermal power plant in the world. Ivanpah was designed and constructed by Bechtel and is operated by NRG Energy. Energy outlooks may be particularly difficult this year, but Bechtel believes that both the nuclear and oil and gas industries will come back as the world navigates its way out of this pandemic. Futcher added that successfully completing Plant Vogtle will give the U.S. nuclear market the confidence that nuclear power is still a valid clean source of energy. According to the U.S. Office of Nuclear Energy, Vogtle is the country’s only nuclear construction project, and is one of the largest infrastructure projects in the U.S. The site’s two new units, 3 and 4, are the first reactors to begin construction in America in more than three decades. “We also believe the LNG market will come back as the world recovers, 56 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

predominately due to the fact that it remains significantly cleaner than coalfired power generation. We remain focused on the jobs we are contracted to deliver,” Futcher added.

SUSTAINABILITY AS A RESPONSIBILITY

Looking beyond 2020, Futcher sees sustainable projects as the future. “We view sustainability as our responsibility to enhance the positive effects of our projects where possible and avoid or mitigate the potentially negative ones. We believe that we are not just delivering a physical asset to our customers and communities, but also creating an enabling environment that will benefit them in the long term.” Bechtel’s approach here is multilayered: protecting people and the environment, partnering with communities, promoting economic development, and pioneering new innovations. “Sustainability is ‘owned’ primarily by our global business units and key functions and services,” Futcher explains. “We empower them with technical support, resources and tools to be successful, and we share new

As the pandemic evolves, Futcher said Bechtel is doing whatever it can to help its customers, which includes continued investment in its tools and execution approach. That’s a formidable task, but one well-tackled by Futcher’s personal management philosophy, which is guided by four tenets: • Leadership is about humility, empathy and service to others. • It’s how you treat those that can do nothing for you that matters most. • Manage data and lead people. • Live by the “Golden Rule.” Futcher’s management style has likely been shaped by his rise through the ranks at Bechtel. Asked for a few words of wisdom gleaned over the course of his four decades’ spent at Bechtel, Futcher said, “Simple. First, think of logistics as your chosen profession and commit yourself to be the best in the profession. Second, learn at your pace and attack your learning like you did in school.” Some of that drive may carry over into retirement, as Futcher plans to get back to a single-digit handicap on the golf course and become proficient at fly fishing. But his family may see a bit more of him too: “I’ll just say, in my retirement I look forward to traveling with my wife (I’ve been everywhere but seen nothing but jobsites) … and spending quality time with my family, especially grandkids.” BB Based in the U.S., Lori Musser is a veteran shipping industry writer. ISSUE 5 / 2020

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PROFILE

IN AT THE DEEP END Bertling’s MacIsaac Takes Reins During the Pandemic

ack in April – when the pandemic was really tightening its grip on the developed world – global breakbulk businesses were desperately trying to make sense of an event that came straight out of a Hollywood script. Before 2020, the possibility of a planet-wide pandemic simply wasn’t a topic of conversation, and certainly not a factor in contingency planning. It was in that state of severe flux that Bertling’s Colin MacIsaac received a career-changing offer: to take up the CEO position at Bertling Logistics, replacing outgoing CEO Matthias Oehmicke. Celebrating his 10-year anniversary at the company this year, MacIsaac said that he did not need to think too hard about whether to accept the offer or not. Speaking to Breakbulk, he said: “I was really up for this new challenge and felt responsible for our global team to take it.” He saw clearly that the Covid-19 pandemic would offer a time to adjust, grow and bring in new ideas. “So, this is an overall good starting point for a new head to take over at Bertling Logistics. We see and have always seen a lot of potentials for growth for us and also for outpacing our competitors, and I really look forward to working on these projects with our global team. I could not be more motivated, first, to motivate them, and secondly, to turn these projects into success.” His goals as CEO are clearly defined: to run a more modern commercial organization with better processes and less administrative work; to run a successful business and grow the organization from within; to become commercially stronger by investing in sales tools and resources, improving relationships with subcontractors and partners, and “selling a 58 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

BY CARLY FIELDS

Colin MacIsaac. CREDIT: BERTLING LOGISTICS

really good product;” to run a lean, but successful organization through empowering internal experts; and to carefully and responsibly expand in markets where Bertling Logistics sees real opportunities for growth. It largely goes without saying that his overriding priority is to keep his employees healthy and safe.

IN THE MOMENT

Planning for the future is one thing; it is quite another to step into running a company in such unusual times. MacIsaac’s and his global teams’ challenge from day one was how to not only challenge, but also thrive from the pandemic. When the regional lockdowns started, Bertling

Logistics made global collaboration software and a video conferencing tool available for all offices, and switched to home working to protect its employees. This brought its own issues for a company that views itself as a people business, offering services, where personal involvement and relationships with customers and business partners still matter. “We were sort of stuck in some unmodern, historically grown and non-remote processes,” he said. “However, as we are all sitting in the same boat during this pandemic, everybody needed to adapt quickly and change the overall way of working and collaborating with each other.” ISSUE 5 / 2020

Logistics experts from Bertling Kuala Lumpur supervising a loadout at the port. CREDIT: BERTLING LOGISTICS

Since that unsettling start, Bertling Logistics has spurred on some process changes and digitization projects that were actually planned to be put into place later this year. While it already had a digital offering for clients, it saw a huge increase in demand for paperless and secure documentation, particularly in developing markets. The challenge here was maintaining security, especially with opportunistic cybercrime on the rise. “Ensuring digital supply chain security is a priority for us and gives our clients reassurance that their data is secure, protected and available at all times,” MacIsaac said. “In this regard, we are discussing some new IT projects and enhancements to our existing

IT systems to follow a more customercentric approach, where our external partners can consume, demand and access the information they require in an autonomous and secure way based on real-time data.” External communication has also been overhauled with a shift from little to more open and frequent sharing of Bertling news and updates. “This situation, now more than ever, requires companies to communicate transparently, reward their global workforce for their work during this pandemic, let their clients know about their operational availability and performance, and openly communicate our way forward through this crisis, including which measures we are taking, where

we see areas of concern (business related) and how we respond to them.”

CHANGE OF PACE

All of Bertling Logistics’ offices have remained operational throughout the pandemic, and MacIsaac has a great deal of pride in his teams and their abilities to flex into new working conditions. “Work” can now mean from home, on rotation or on split-shifts, a change that MacIsaac sees as permanent. “This work model won’t go away anymore, that’s for sure. Even more, we have to – now and also in the future – reward good performance and allow good people a certain flexibility on when, how and from where they fulfill their duties, as long as they deliver www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 59

PROFILE

results and do their jobs. This is something we will continuously strive for,” he said. The pandemic has also served as a reminder of the critical importance of health and wellbeing, and that has led to a timely reevaluation of the way workforce teams care for each other. This has been a “real driver for global teamwork,” MacIsaac said. “I think that we also now appreciate collaboration with our colleagues more. This is something that we took for granted before as we saw our colleagues every day. Now we have to arrange time to meet with our colleagues to discuss projects and developments. This also makes our interactions with clients and colleagues more productive.” He expects this shift to be permanent as well. In fact, a return to pre-Covid “normal” may never materialize: “Nothing will be like it was before, not only in the industry but in general. For sure we will eventually go back to normal, but this will be a new normal. This applies to the project logistics and freight forwarding industry as well.

“Companies, including us, will work on concepts to be better prepared for such exceptional circumstances in the future. There is no way around the fact that this crisis will be followed by the next one … and we have to make sure we put better plans in place to adequately respond and adapt to these situations in the future to ensure business continuity for our clients and employees. This is a learning process for all of us.” The long-term impact of this crisis on the breakbulk and project cargo industry will not be known for many months, if not years, so investment decisions need to be made very carefully, if not delayed. MacIsaac noted that some clients are already following that line, prompting projects to be pushed back, delayed or even cancelled. “This is why we are working on ideas on how to compensate potential gaps in the project logistics sector and increasingly focus on other sectors and further enhance our IT solutions in general, for which demand has already picked up again on a global scale.”

EVOLUTION CONTINUES FOR FORWARDERS

The role of the freight forwarder was already changing before the pandemic hit, with forwarders vying for the service advantage and facing ever-increasing risks. This evolution will continue, MacIsaac said, with clients increasingly taking over logistics tasks themselves, establishing their own internal logistics divisions, or approaching carriers and subcontractors directly. “This makes us rethink our business model and also the value we can add to our clients’ success,” he said. “However, this crisis, once again reminded us of the importance of continuous supply of goods, solid relationships to producers, carriers and others, and also of the importance of supply chain sustainability, which is one of the areas we are working on at Bertling and addressing in our IT projects.” One slow-moving change that he is particularly passionate about is increasing diversity in the industry. “Give, for instance, women more

Bertling Logistics applies global safety, hygiene and distancing standards in all of its offices, like here in Bertling Jakarta, during Covid-19 to create safe work environments for its global teams. CREDIT: BERTLING LOGISTICS

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ISSUE 5 / 2020

PROFILE

Project logistics will remain a cornerstone of Bertling’s service portfolio, but other industry sectors and cargo types are becoming increasingly important. CREDIT: BERTLING LOGISTICS

power, and job beginners/career changers in general, better career starts and growth opportunities in this industry,” he said. “We are incredibly short of experts in this industry, and hiring good people is getting more and more difficult as there are simply very little resources available. Therefore we should encourage young women to start a logistics carrier, drum up why this is a great industry to work in and empower women in markets and positions where they are sadly still underestimated. “There are many good career paths within freight forwarding and project logistics, and we need industry champions to really highlight how successful careers can be built in our industry in order to inspire a new generation to take on the challenges that we not only face today, but also the challenges that inevitably the future brings.”

STAFF ENGAGEMENT

In that future reality, MacIsaac hopes that his collegial, honest and open style of management, communication and exchange will continue to bring the best out of Bertling Logistics’ employees. That he is “first and foremost” a forwarder is a key attribute, and having worked in several countries he understands cultural differences and demands. “This is also one of our

“This situation, now more than ever, requires companies to communicate transparently, reward their global workforce for their work during this pandemic and let their clients know about their operational availability and performance” – Colin MacIsaac, Bertling Logistics

corporate values at Bertling anchored in our Values and Code of Conduct and something we/I live every day.” MacIsaac is focused on the output and performance of every single employee and treats them with respect. “Good people, who understand their job and deliver results, will get a lot of freedom, reward and independency on how they run their department/area of expertise,” he said. Bertling Logistics plans to reduce the administrative burden for staff to allow them to focus on what they are good at. It is also reverting to a more regional management approach to empower local experts to run their

“shops” in the best possible way while addressing local demands and trends – and still following corporate standards. “I hope that these core principles will guide how I interact with my team, all our staff, our clients and our subcontractor and agent network,” he said. It is those tenets that will underpin delivery of MacIsaac’s roadmap as he moves ahead. For him, people still, ultimately, matter. While cut business travel has gifted MacIsaac more time to spend with his family and an opportunity to work on strategic direction for Bertling Logistics, he looks forward to a time when face-to-face meetings can resume. Personal attention is a top priority and for him, nothing can really replace a face-to-face meeting when reaching agreements or solving problems. With lockdowns easing in some regions just as others ramp up, he may need to wait a little longer before he can meet those contacts in person once again. BB Carly Fields has reported on the shipping industry for the past 20 years, covering bunkers and broking and much in between. www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 61

THOUGHT LEADERS

F LADIN

eBILL O

LET

F RO

N BA

A AR GU

AR GU

IT NK ED BA CR OF R TE ING LET AD FL O L L BI

Paper Cuts

BY ANDREW RAYMOND, BOLERO INTERNATIONAL

veryone in the breakbulk market is searching for new efficiencies after the Covid-19 pandemic. Few changes, however, will yield results as quickly as digitizing vital documents that, in their paper form, hold up the release of cargoes, risking heavy demurrage charges and in extreme cases, seizure by customs authorities. The urgent need to eliminate delays and accelerate shipments makes the case for the digitization of bills of lading, letters of credit and bank guarantees more convincing every minute. No importer of gas turbines or huge cranes wants to find that the documents that enable them to collect their cargo are massively delayed, or maybe even have gone missing. They may have organized authorizations to move the equipment by road or rail, which could be difficult to extend if the bill of lading is unavailable. Since it is a document that confers ownership and is often used as security for financing; its absence prevents collection of the cargo it supports. Yet delays and mistakes occur all too frequently with paper documents even during normal times. When a country, its banks and ports, are under some form of lockdown or restriction, everyone now knows that these problems are multiplied. Paper documents are no more able to be transported or processed than the cargoes they support.

FASTER TRANSITION NEEDED

As we edge out of the pandemic’s shadow, it is clear that the breakbulk industry has not been swift enough to digitize. In the container market, however, carriers have started to dispense with paper, attracting shippers through super-convenient online portals, automated 62 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE

WWW.BREAKBULK.COM

pricing and fast access to digitized documents including electronic bills of lading, or eBLs. Apart from the sheer speed of transfer, electronic versions of essential trade documents have the distinct advantage of not being held up at borders or lost during movement restrictions. This has become a vital attribute. Exchanged on a secure, purpose-built trade digitization platform, trade finance instruments, eBLs and other digitized trade documentation take hours to process instead of the days or weeks for paper equivalents. This is why breakbulk carriers should invest in paperless systems in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Advanced platforms are ready for integration with emerging blockchain solutions, but the more established open up access to an entire ecosystem of current users that includes carriers, banks, corporates and trade finance specialists. In a digitized workflow that maps the real-world operation of global trade, automation takes care of the data uploading, while transfer between parties is at the click of a mouse across secure digital networks. Compliance checking, too, can be automated, while encryption and audit trails built into such platforms also reduce the many opportunities for fraud and forgery offered by paper documents. The integration of secure digital trade finance platforms offers a path to greater efficiency with opportunity for real returns on investment for the breakbulk carrier industry. BB Andrew Raymond is CEO of Bolero International.

ISSUE 5 / 2020

CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK / MARK CLUBB

Digitization Need to Meet New Customer Demands

Take Stock of Performance Pandemic Reveals Supply Chain Failings

he Covid-19 crisis has exposed the vulnerabilities in existing supply chain models worldwide. It has proven to be a painful lesson as to why end-to-end value optimization is more critical than transactional cost reduction. As we emerge from pandemic-related restrictions, there are four areas supply chain companies need to focus on: • Revenue revitalization. • Operational rehabilitation. • Organizational redesign. • Adoption and implementation of digital solutions. As we navigate the uncharted path of return to the “new normal,” this is an opportune moment to rethink and redesign supply chains to deliver the most value. To deliver successful change management, the logistics and supply chain process needs to be reviewed from all angles. End-to-end value optimization should drive down cost, deliver efficiency and be robust and resilient. 4D’s Logistics Performance Review – a quick “pulse check” that reviews an organization’s procurement and supply chain processes – can rapidly assess a company’s supply chain which is critical in the current state of flux. In examining processes, companies need to: • Identify performance gaps in costs, processes and health, safety, security and environment, or HSSE, for example, between the best-in-class and current performance through internal/external benchmarking. • Identify logistics practices worth replicating which can be shared across the global logistics team, helping other units improve their logistics performances. • Establish a platform for sustained outputs and drive continuous improvement of logistics performances. • Introduce operational excellence/continuous improvement capability within the logistics team.

VISIBILITY MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER

Now, more than ever, it is critical for all parties to have visibility of their supply chains. With global trade impacted, both in terms of supply and demand, the challenge faced by many, whether buyers or sellers, is how to adapt their supply chains to keep goods and services moving during a time of global lockdown.

A logistics performance review is ultimately an assurance activity to help logistics management to highlight gaps to potential areas, assess unit operation cost, identify key process improvements, establish platform for sustainable outputs, drive continuous improvement in logistics performance, and demonstrate independent assurance in providing logistics service to the businesses. The pandemic has exposed latent issues in the supply chain and logistics arena. It is imperative to use this as a much-needed catalyst to start thinking about adapting businesses to the changed world. A logistics performance review is the key to understanding what breakbulk businesses need and how those demands should be met. This focus can assist an organization to be more efficient and reduce cost, supporting it to emerge into the new normal more resilient than before. BB

BY VILASINI KRISHNAN, 4D SUPPLY CHAIN CONSULTING

Vilasini Krishnan is a senior consultant with 4D Supply Chain Consulting. Planning

Interface Management

Scheduling

Education

Logistics Leadership

Key Logistics Roles

Monitoring

Capacity & Capabilities

Improvement

Competences Benchmark

4D Logistics Performance Review

Control Improvement Potential

Companies should ask how they perform against the best-in-class and what is their improvement potential. CREDIT: 4D SUPPLY CHAIN CONSULTING

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 63

OCEAN SERVICES

CREDIT: AAL SHIPPING

SAVE OUR SEAFARERS

Mental, Physical Toll of Crew Change Restrictions

BY CARLY FIELDS

ften referred to as the lifeblood of the shipping industry, seafarers have had great cause to doubt that lofty statement this year. Left battling severe restrictions on international travel, hundreds of thousands of at-sea workers have been confined to ships well beyond their contracts – despite having no contact with Covid-19 – or have been unable to start contracts, putting them in extreme financial difficulty. In recognition of the problem, in July the UK government hosted the first international maritime summit to address the impact of Covid-19 on crew changes. Representatives from 14 countries met and agreed to new international measures to open up foreign borders for seafarers and increase the number of commercial flights to expedite repatriation efforts. A joint 64 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

statement after the summit urged all International Maritime Organization member states to designate seafarers as key workers alongside a number of other measures to help facilitate crew changes. Estimates from the International Transport Workers’ Federation at that time put about 300,000 seafarers trapped working aboard ships due to the crew change crisis caused by government Covid-19 border and travel restrictions, and an equal number of unemployed seafarers left ashore and unable to join ships. Speaking after the summit, shipping organization BIMCO said it was “positive” that notable maritime nations attended the summit and pledged support. However, BIMCO had concerns about the low number of participants and the lack of timescales for concrete actions. “The absence of many key countries from the international community

at the summit highlights the apparent indifference of some governments towards the crew change crisis and their lack of understanding of the critical role seafarers play in keeping international trade moving,” said David Loosley, BIMCO secretary general. “Now is not the time for inward looking nationalism – all governments need to step up to the mark and work together to provide a tangible international solution to a pressing international problem; robust, decisive and immediate action is needed to bring our seafarers home safely,” Loosley added.

MPV OPERATOR CHALLENGES

Multipurpose ship operators have fought hard to make necessary crew changes throughout the pandemic. AAL Shipping Managing Director Kyriacos Panayides said his company has faced and continues to face severe ISSUE 5 / 2020

disruption to the normal process of crew change and movement. He put this down to three factors: • The availability, schedule integrity and in many cases cost of commercial flights and other modes of public transport available. • The disparate and constantly changing travel restrictions and documentational requirements implemented by each government. • The enhanced Covid-19 testing protocols and guidelines, which tend to differ from region to region and demand forward planning from crew managers and patience from seafarers. “This has put a great strain on everyone involved in the crewing process – especially our crew,” he said. Panayides referred to the “new normal” that the sector now faces at sea, and the need to move from previous reactive short-term measures to building a new strategy for the long-term safety of seafarers and office-based teams. BBC Chartering CEO Ulrich Ulrichs said that BBC, as a charterer, faced many different restrictions all over the world. “Each country, sometimes even each respective port, had and have their own rules and regulations, so we had to adjust to those circumstances,” he said. These include general embarking/disembarking restrictions, quarantine regulations, and a lack of flights, transportation, accommodation ashore. “We actually had more problems getting replacement crew on board than getting crews home,” he added.

Kyriacos Panayides AAL Shipping

Ulrich Ulrichs BBC Chartering

Clockwise from top left: Reiner Wiederkehr, Breakbulk’s Lesley Meredith, Fr. Sinclair Oubre and Dennis Mottola take part in a Breakbulk365 webinar on the crew change crisis. To watch the webinar go to www.breakbulk.com/page/breakbulk365. CREDIT: BREAKBULK365

To undertake some changes, BBC had to deviate to certain ports purely for crew exchanges and Briese Group – BBC Chartering’s technical and crewing manager – even chartered a few dedicated planes to get crew home and back on board.

‘PREJUDICE AGAINST SEAFARERS’

Speaking in a Breakbulk365 webinar in August, Fr. Sinclair Oubre, the pastor of St. Francis of Assisi in Orange, Texas, and a member of the Seafarers Union, said that the issue of shore leave and crew change is universal. “It’s very difficult on the international flag fleet and even our U.S. guys are suffering greatly for that.” He added he knew of one mariner quarantined on a Military Sealift Command ship since April. Oubre went as far to say that it’s a case of “classic prejudice against seafarers.” He used the example of airline crews versus vessel crews, in that airline workers are quickly ushered through expedited Customs service, while a mariner faces a more daunting process. The situation “has been a terrible failure of governments for flag countries because they don’t show a lot of interest in getting their citizens back,” he added. Fellow Breakbulk365 webinar panelist Thomas Damsgaard, a long-time maritime executive, agreed. “There are protocols in place for the airline industry already. And what I don’t

understand is why have we not taken a page from their playbook for our maritime seafarers?” He added that, with the airline industry struggling due to travel restrictions, providing mercy flights for stranded seafarers would actually benefit the airlines. Damsgaard also lays blame at the feet of the International Maritime Organization. “The IMO has failed miserably. It’s all bark and no bite at all from the IMO, which should have been stepping up to the plate here.” Some blame can be leveled at ship owners: webinar panelist Reiner Wiederkehr, CEO, Fracht USA, said he had heard that some owners did not want to spend money on the visas for seafarers. “I think that’s wrong,” he said. He added that cargo owners can apply pressure on carriers and ask questions. “We can include some language into a booking,” he said. “Maybe they’ll want to implement a surcharge; they’re implementing surcharges for everything else, so maybe there’s a half-dollar per ton that you pay to ensure that these crews are taken care of, and their families.” Also speaking at the Breakbulk365 webinar, Dennis Mottola, a global logistics consultant and former head of global logistics for Bechtel Corp, said charterers, when booking cargo or a vessel, need to ask the owner, operator or carrier “what are you doing on behalf of the seafarers that are manning the ships?” www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 65

OCEAN SERVICES

MENTAL HEALTH WORRIES

The mental strain that the whole situation is placing on seafarers is of grave concern. Reports of a spike in suicides – although there is no single source that counts suicides among seafarers – have been attributed to the extended contracts. BBC Chartering has committed to close communication with all parties to help alleviate some of the mental strain, ensuring that seafarers understand all the efforts that are being made to get them on and off ships.

AAL Shipping added that the physical safety and mental well-being of its masters, officers and crews cannot be overstated. Free Internet access is provided to its crew so that they can maintain contact with family and friends and through Columbia Shipmanagement, crews have 24/7 access to an online mental health support initiative that provides direct counsel (via a hotline, Viber, WhatsApp and email) and video tutorials from health professionals on mental and physical wellbeing. It also recently launched

Top: A group of colleagues from AAL Shipping, including Kyriacos Panayides (top left), and CSM Cyprus, visit off-signers to express thanks and deliver gift bags as a token of appreciation. Above: Crew changes have proven difficult for MPV operators. CREDIT: AAL SHIPPING

66 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

a series of Covid-19 training videos for seafarers that provide insight and advice on safety measures and mitigating risk. Fears are that the physical consequences of the crew change status will also start to mount. “If we have fatigued, tired and demotivated crew on board, it has severe consequences,” Ulrichs said. “Productivity and efficiency will be low and hazardous and unsafe situations could occur and we could not provide the service we promised to our clients.” In a brighter note, Ulrichs said that the bond between owners and charterers has grown as both work together to help crews in the sector. Along with caring for seafarers’ mental health, Damsgaard also emphasized crews’ families as an important issue. “I think the crew agencies and owners should be held to a higher standard making sure that the crewmembers’ families are being taken care of,” he said. He likened the current circumstances to piracy in the Gulf of Aden with the risk and needs similar. “The crisis that we are going through now is being referred to as a war situation,” he said. “What have we done with ships that have gone into the Arabian Gulf during the war? With war premiums and bonuses and what have you. “I don’t think you can buy yourself out of this … but I think that if we’re calling this a war situation, I think there would be more tools in our toolbox to more efficiently handle and manage it,” he added. Damsgaard said that the “mercy flights” that were employed early in the pandemic to repatriate citizens should be extended to displaced seafarers. “Countries seem to have forgotten their seafarer citizens in this sense,” he said. “I think it is upon them to really engage a lot more … to make sure they can evacuate some of their citizens back and also send new citizens back so that they can re-crew ships and so we can keep these supply chains going.” BB Carly Fields has reported on the shipping industry for the past 20 years, covering bunkers and broking and much in between. ISSUE 5 / 2020

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IS IT SAFE?

ENSURING THE RIGHT PARTNERS BY GARY BURROWS

“I

t’s 10 p.m., do you know where your cargo’s at?” The old U.S. public service announcement was meant to illicit fears from parents about their child’s whereabouts, but shippers and logistics service providers can conjure up their own nightmares, thank you very much. Gripping middle-of-the-night phone calls and worrying about the ‘what-ifs’ are part and parcel of the project cargo world, a world that brings together myriad parties to coordinate often hundreds of shipments to arrive safely, timely and effectively over several months to several years of a contract’s duration. Mitigating risks is the name of the game here and adequate vetting of shippers, EPCs, carriers, charterers, intermediaries and third-party logistics providers is an intrinsic piece of the industrial project planning puzzle. This made for a lively questionand-answer Breakbulk 365 webinar on project cargo service provider vetting on July 23. Moderator Dennis Mottola, a global logistics consultant and former Bechtel executive, prefaced the conversation, saying: “We all want to get to a place where we have complete confidence in the service providers that we’ve selected; or at least we’ve done everything that we can do to 68 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

make the right decision about the partners that we’re going to give a piece of our responsibility to.” The risks are great, from finances to reputation, “every time we make one of those critical decisions about who we’re going to invite to help us get our jobs done,” Mottola said.

MASTERING THE MOUSETRAP

What’s involved in vetting a carrier, intermediary or logistics service provider? Pascal Ochquee, director global logistics of Halliburton, said the major global energy service provider’s vetting efforts are centralized. “We’ve joined up with our legal team and some external partners on going through the vetting of providers. It’s fairly extensive, or it might sound extensive for new providers.” The key points for him are compliance and financial stability of a potential partner. “Just having the financial stability and understanding the structure of each logistics provider and service provider is a critical part of why we vet,” Ochquee said. “We’re trying to match the needs that we have as an organization, and that we have the stability required to move our business.” Brian Putallaz, global commodity manager of GE, said his company and its lucrative wind energy operations list 35 to 40 primary core carriers, ranging from third-party logistics

providers, or 3PLs, and freight forwarders to asset-based carriers, including roll-on roll-off, tramp heavylift vessel operators, liner operators, barge and other specialized carriers. Putallaz said that in his role, depending on new business, he has to seek out “a hole”, a market or service in which “we don’t have the right cost position because we won’t have the right carriers.” He will research through networking, attending Breakbulk conferences, speaking with agents, “or pulling up a port of call (on the computer) and see what carriers have been to that port in the last three months.” While the core of its vetted carriers are on main global trade lanes, such as the major east-west routes, for niche or one-off cargo moves, GE will normally go through a 3PL or freight forwarder, who will subcontract the portion of a move requiring a niche carrier. That intermediary must guarantee that GE’s terms are clearly detailed to the subcontractor. “We would view that (intermediary) as the carrier and they would be liable that the subcontractor abides by our requirements,” Putallaz said. Outside resources also include U.S. Security and Exchange Commission financial reports, Dunn & Bradstreet, Lloyd’s List Intelligence, local and industry media, such as Breakbulk, and other remote external resources for information, the participants detailed. ISSUE 5 / 2020

CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

Webinar Explores Vetting of Project Supply Chain Partners

“We redo that every three to five years for our main contractors,” Ochquee said. “It’s not something that is just a one-time thing and you get on the list and we never look at it again.” Once onboarded, Putallaz will monitor vetted partners’ annual reports and “what their cash positions are.” Though vetted carriers have had their financial background checked, have agreed to GE’s master service agreement, and have met all standards, nothing is carved in stone. GE’s wind energy components are growing in size and complexity, so “the mouse trap we use today may not work tomorrow, so we’re constantly looking forward,” he said. Kenn Soendergaard, owner and manager of broker and forwarder TSL Shipping and Trading, said it’s not just vetting the financial aspects of a carrier. “Once we have cargo on board a specific vessel, it comes down to how well is that ship financed,” he said. With the beating the (carrier) industry has taken and the lack of investment in the fleet, those vessels are often not financed to the best of abilities,” he said. For instance, a single chartered cargo ship and exposure of an owner in bankruptcy or under dire financial circumstances may risk cargo being arrested and maintained, he noted.

Oftentimes, beyond price, savings are found from longstanding relationships, he insists. “What we’ve seen from doing that is being able to get, first of all, a competitive price – but it actually drives cost savings from the back end because they understand our processes, they know our products, they know the folks they’re working with … if you look at total landed costs, I think we get some benefits with working with folks in the long run. On the service part, there’s flexibility on both sides. A carrier that knows you well and works with you, it’s easier to hold a vessel a bit, or get equipment you really have a priority for.” TSL’s Soendergaard, when pressed, estimated that those companies that have projects handled on a yearly basis that implement vetting beyond rate and delivery date “is probably not even 40 percent. “With an industry that has been under pressure for so long, you show your clients that you get the job done and you work your way through it afterward,” he said. “For most shippers, it’s a matter of ‘is your ship in position for the cargo, have we done business before, and can I count on you to take my cargo from point A to B without stopping at three ports on the way?’ If that’s the case,

sure let’s go along with that, rather than a vetting procedure,” Soendergaard said.

FORWARDER PERSPECTIVE

As an intermediary, Leonard Headrick, director – industrial projects, Bolloré Logistics, has been through the vetting drill plenty of times. “Typically they want to know about ownership,” Headrick said of cargo owners, EPCs and 3PLs that initiate the vetting process. “Bottom line is, ‘who am I doing business with?’ Are there any partners or is it wholly owned. Is it a private or public company? “Other elements include global coverage, your network, can you handle my business door to door? Are you using agents, where’s your network, where are your offices? What types of projects have you executed, when, where, what were the volumes? Often we are asked what are the largest pieces we’ve handled on a project,” Headrick said. Other points in the sort-out include systems capabilities, track and trace, inventory management, forwarding systems. The largest emphasis, though, is on ethics and compliance programs, and sustainability. “Shippers want to know the amount of risk doing business with a company

PRICE VS. SERVICE

Despite many shippers’ vetting processes, there’s still some doubt that when approaching a product that cost isn’t the primary arbiter. “There’s a fine line between trying to get the best rate in the market and still making sure you’re getting service quality that you need for your product,” Halliburton’s Ochquee said. “As an organization, we’re always fairly conservative. Obviously you look for opportunities and the best service providers out there.”

From left to right: Dennis Mottola, global logistics consultant; Leonard Headrick, Bolloré Logistics; Kenn Soendergaard, TSL Shipping & Trading; Brian Butallaz, GE; and Pascal Ochquee, Halliburton. To watch the webinar go to www.breakbulk.com/page/breakbulk365. CREDIT: BREAKBULK365

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 69

TRADE NOTES

Vetting should not be one-sided – logistics service providers must properly vet shippers as well as vice versa. CREDIT: FOX BRASIL

today,” Headrick said. Shippers will also frequently quiz on what percentage of your business is generated from projects, oil and gas or other sectors, and, of course, insurance and liability limits.

VETTING RUBS BOTH WAYS

In true business partner relationships, both sides should derive benefit. Therefore it behooves the vetted carrier and logistics service provider to properly vet the shipper as well. TSL’s Soendergaard admits that for many intermediaries, the process is somewhat antiquated. “Given the pressure the industry has been under over the past 15 years … there’s no universal vetting of shippers at this point,” he said. “With the KYC (know your customer) process that’s appeared over the last couple years, it’s more a case of making sure you adhere to standards than actually vetting the shipper. That’s something I foresee, more carriers and industry in general becoming standardized, so that everyone knows they’re getting paid and they’re dealing with businesses that they can trust.”

HEALTH AND SAFETY

One area that has swelled in prominence among shippers’ vetting is health and safety, Bolloré’s Headrick said. 70 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

“You look at the order book and you look at the aging out of vessels, and I think we’re heading for a supply/demand curve adjustment sometime soon.” – Brian Putallaz, GE

“Safety and keeping records of safety have become more standardized over the past 10 years,” he said. A vessel safety checklist, regular “toolbox” meetings, vessel safety statistics “are part of everyday life on board for the carriers we do business with.” Though Headrick noted some statistics can be misleading with regards to a carrier’s safety record: “You are keeping a record of your last incident and how many days since. But if you’ve only worked three ships since the last incident, it may not tell a lot about your safety record.” It’s the same for forwarders. “This is a common element that we see on vendor qualifications,” Headrick said. “They want to know about your HSC (health and safety)

program. They want to know about incidents and accidents and how are they recorded.” Headrick maintains that Bolloré “has a very robust HSC program, because not only do we have a logistics division, but we are also a port operator and a rail operator, so we are working with a lot of equipment. So being in compliance with our customers or being in line with their programs is of the utmost importance.” One thing that makes GE’s Putallaz nervous is the lack of investment in the multipurpose vessel fleet. “You look at the order book and you look at the aging out of vessels, and I think we’re heading for a supply/ demand curve adjustment sometime soon.” He acknowledges that the lagging order book is due to lack of return on investment, lack of capital in the carrier industry and the constraints faced after years of downturn. Gary Burrows, a 40-year publishing industry veteran, has covered the supply chain industry since 1988 and has served as editor of business-to-business logistics publications for more than 30 years. ISSUE 5 / 2020

TRADE NOTES

PROJECT CARGO’S MISSING TECH LINK? GE Executive Proposes Neutral Supply Chain Platform The breakbulk and project cargo market is ripe for an independent third-party supply chain management platform, said Brian Putallaz, global community manager of GE, during a Breabulk 365 webinar on July 23. Technology’s role in selecting and cooperating with logistics service providers “is not as much as I’d like it to be,” Putallaz said during the questionand-answer webinar on project cargo service provider vetting. “When I look at the chartering and breakbulk industry, I still feel it’s one of those spaces that hasn’t been disrupted, and there’s a number of reasons behind that.” Through its vetting and qualification process with carriers, intermediaries, charterers and thirdparty logistics providers, GE can be dealing with as many as 40 carriers, charterers, intermediaries and thirdparty logistics primary providers across all businesses and modes, each with a disparate system, he explained. “I don’t want to learn 40 different platforms and I don’t want to have 40 different log-ins,” he said. Further, Putallaz points out that much of the project owner’s communication is via email. “Sometimes I think we’re email wranglers with all the position reports that we get and the various updates,” he admitted.

KEEPING IT NEUTRAL

His proposal is for an innovator to develop a neutral third-party platform “where I can log into one place and have a dashboard that connects me to all our different carriers, cradle to grave, from vetting to RFQ (requests for qualification) to execution to big data analysis,” he said. He compared the concept to longtime third-party provider GT Nexus, which developed back in 1998 at the peak of the dot-com boom-and-bust. GT Nexus and its early competitors were able to gain traction with their technology focusing on container-shipping, which is more of a commoditized industry and more receptive to standardization, com-

An independent third-party supply chain management platform is needed. CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

pared with the complex and unique requirements of a given project cargo shipment. Certainly parcel, and other simple repeat delivery options enjoy more predictability than potential project technology providers can scale. Still, the majority of shipments within a project move goes containerized, so project shippers and EPCs are familiar with what’s possible. Putallaz said that GE has “been in conversations with some of the guys … to see what’s out there.” He said he is optimistic to see “where it’s going to go the next three to five years.” A neutral third party makes the most sense for a platform, he maintains. “The solution is not going to come from us with GE digital, and it’s not going to come from the carrier or forwarder side.” If a carrier spends seven figures to develop a platform, it’s not going to be enthusiastic about sharing it with competitors, nor would a competitor find it palatable to piggyback on a competitor’s system, Putallaz noted. Further, he recognizes that the funds are not available on the carrier side for such an investment, even if a return on investment could be proven. “Part of it is the money has not been there on the carriers’ side,” he said. “Carriers haven’t financially been in the best spot the last 10 years. If you’re a carrier and you invest a million dollars into a great platform,

does that guarantee you the business? Well, if your ship is not positioned where I need it, I’m not going to hold my cargo for 30 or 60 days to position the ship over there, just because I like using your system.”

OTHER FUNCTIONALITIES

Pascal Ochquee, director global logistics, Halliburton commented on some of the features that an envisioned project cargo platform might offer: “One of challenges we see is something as simple as tracking information all the way down from vessel carrier to port to the custom broker to the logistics service provider,” Ochquee said. “It’s a popular comment in my organization that, ‘if Amazon can track all your small parcel shipments, then why can’t we do the same thing?’” While project logistics is more complex than shipping parcels to home addresses, it still requires the same level of transparency and the technology to make it possible, he added. Ochquee agreed with Putallaz that such a system can’t “come from just one carrier or one logistics service provider, because not everyone is going to be on board working on the platform of a competitor or semicompetitor. “It’s one of the challenges that we’re hopefully going to solve over the next couple of years.” BB www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 71

REGIONAL REVIEW

AFRICA IS EVERYONE’S DARLING US-China Trade Spat Plays into Continent’s Hands

BY KERRY DIMMER

he spillover from the U.S.China trade war is playing out positively for Africa. With 20 of the fastest growing economies back in 2018, Africa was always going to be a target by both giants as an opportunity for economic influence and growth. On the one hand, there is China’s penetration in Africa, playing the long game with infrastructure development, particularly port, rail and road development, that underpins integration, and a heavy investment in the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. On the other hand there is the U.S., 72 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

which despite declining crude needs from Nigeria and Angola, still has an interest in exporting its cars, machinery and airplanes to Africa. It was the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, of 2008 that provided tariff-free access to more than 6,500 sub-Saharan products, and led to some US$100 billion growth in U.S. trade – tariffs have underpinned the U.S.-China trade war. However, by 2017 this had declined to under US$39 million versus China’s US$148 billion. Ope Onibokun, head of project finance at Arise, said that the retaliatory tariff war between the U.S. and China, and thus the decline in imports and exports between them, is good

news for Africa. “In the short term, U.S. companies will be looking to explore immediate alternatives for products manufactured in China, particularly those that enjoy preferential trade agreements with the U.S. “In the medium term, a switch from traditional Chinese suppliers to manufacturers with global supply chains will see the U.S. divert its foreign direct investment to other countries. And long term we can expect the U.S. to decouple manufacturing away from China.” Onibokun notes that this decoupling is being accelerated by Covid-19, as manufacturers from China and the U.S. look to shorten supply chains and focus on countries that offer comparative ISSUE 5 / 2020

advantages – such as access to raw material, efficient and low-cost production – and minimal tariffs to intended export markets. He also highlights the Chinese economy’s structural shift as it moves from low-skill manufacturing towards a service economy, the latter “now accounting for more than 53 percent of its US$14.3 trillion GDP in 2019. “Certain African countries stand to benefit especially with the negative impacts of Covid-19 that have resulted in a supply side disruption,” Onibokun said. “With 19 of the world’s youngest countries in Africa, and over 200 million people between the ages of 14-24, the continent can leverage this attractive demographic to support new manufacturing activities.”

TRADE FACILITATION

AGOA also continues to facilitate trade preferences for quota and duty-free entry to the U.S. on goods and, regardless of the November U.S. election, public opinion is that an even tougher trade stance will be taken against China. Onibokun’s prediction is that there will be a gradual reallocation of U.S. capital away from China into other regions such as Africa. “A best guess timeline will be in the next five years,” he said. “Investment in infrastructure, transportation and logistics is already picking up in certain African nations, as evidenced by several port expansion projects.” He is referring to port hubs like Mombasa, positioned as a hub for East and Central Africa, and Djibouti and Beira that service breakbulk clients in Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Lars Greiner, senior consultant at Hamburg Port Consulting, was born on the continent and has vast experience in African logistics. He cautions against considering Africa as a whole because of the separate trajectories and diverse and divergent paths of the eastern, western and southern regions. “East Africa has a very positive growth pattern due to oil and LNG finds, and West Africa continues to experience real industrial growth and infrastructure development,” Greiner said. “South Africa on the other hand is floundering due to its sinking economy

Ope Onibokun

Lars Greiner

Arise

Hamburg Port Consulting

with few willing to invest real money until it has stabilized.” That said, Greiner still believes that Africa remains an exciting frontier in many areas, particularly regarding resources, development of new economies, and digitalization. But with the Covid-19 pandemic hitting Africa later than the northern hemisphere, there has been a move from a period of rapid and rampant investment to a more cautious and returns-focused scenario. “Most [investors] are no longer looking to invest purely for long-term profit, but more along the model of always investing with an exit strategy in place,” he said.

Reasons for this include the sour experiences of the Simandou project in Guinea where the Vale, Rio Tinto and BSGR court cases have been ongoing over several years. The Djibouti spat with DP World, and the Acacia gold mine fines in Tanzania have not been forgotten either. “These highly expensive excursions have led to heightened caution, but that in turn opens the door for angel investors and venture capitalists in the short to medium high-risk, high-return arena, but who will rarely support mining development,” Greiner said. China, on the other hand, is really the only major nation interested in the mineral and natural resources Africa offers, but is disinclined to grow the manufacturing base or skills level of Africans, he adds. “This is where Europe and the U.S. will step in and become more involved in development, particularly in the western and southern regions.” However, Greiner asks if Africa is ready for massive development growth. “I believe Ghana has the tools for sustainable development and on the east coast, Uganda and Rwanda, despite their dependency on Kenya becoming apparent. South Africa is likely to continue its downward spiral until the

The problems of overly complex bureaucracy and overpriced logistics costs can challenge Africa projects. CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK.

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 73

REGIONAL REVIEW

SAL has an active presence in Africa. CREDIT: SAL

corruption that is ravaging its economy is properly addressed, but still has incredible potential.”

‘PART OF THE SOLUTION’

Greiner quotes from Eldrige Cleaver in relation to the potential of Africa: “ ‘There is no more neutrality in the world. You have to be part of the solution, or you’re going to be part of the problem,’ ” he said. “Part of the challenge of development has been the lack of transport infrastructure in Africa. HPC is involved in a variety of transport infrastructure projects across the continent, however the problems of overly complex bureaucracy, aided by overpriced logistics costs compound the challenges.” He lists top tips for breakbulk and project cargo movers eyeing Africa as a destination for continued or new investment. First, boots on the ground is essential. Second, project movers need to ensure good representation at key points on the chain into and in Africa, and those supply chains need to be simple, efficient and resilient. Third, movers must strive for more transparency to allow for quick responses to challenges and changes – political or medical – and to expose flaws that need to be addressed. “This can only be realized through good representation and openness,” Greiner said. SAL Heavy Lift already has a keen presence in Africa’s project industry. Juergen Kuntz, senior manager and head of SAL’s Africa Chartering Desk, 74 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

confirmed that there is still much port infrastructure and improvement to existing ports required. “Hot spots are definitely Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Mozambique, and Egypt remains strong,” he said. “We are seeing activities increasing in infrastructure and oil and gas, which translates into carriers and operators adding tonnage. Freight forwarders, who were previously looking at other regions, are now opening offices in the new hot spot zones.” Kuntz added that there is also increasing activity coming into Africa from SAL’s clients in Europe and the U.S. “This is great to see and clearly highlights that there are opportunities for everyone in the Africa theatre. So the challenges really are just disguised opportunities.”

CHANGE OF CARGOES

Onibokun said many of those opportunities will alter the cargo types and mixes from African countries, with the need for more breakbulk and project cargo transport. “Breakbulk cargo carriers will be well-positioned to take advantage of emerging trends, such as the move from the traditional African cargo of raw materials. There will be a push for more in-country processing and value addition. This trend benefits multinationals, who will avail of favorable tariff and tax incentives offered at specialized economic zones. “Bulk cargo carriers will be

required, even in countries like Gabon and Benin, to transport processed wood products and cotton and cashews. And with infrastructure investments needs of up to US$170 billion per annum, according to the African Development Bank, the continent is under huge pressure to increase its port capacity and invest in efficient port equipment, and logistics infrastructure such as warehouse, storage facilities and power plants.” Onibokun’s own company, Arise Port & Logistics, is already doing this through its investment in a dry and liquid bulk terminal in San Pedro, Ivory Coast, to service mining clients, and in a mineral port terminal in Gabon, primarily to handle export of manganese. The company’s integrated platform is also investing in special economic zones that provide an integrated ecosystem to support manufacturing in Africa. So while it is true that the investment climate in Africa varies by region and country, and that legislation and regulations can be tricky to maneuver, development is still solely needed, and the door to Africa has truly been propped opened thanks to bickering between China and the U.S. whose positions as first and third of Africa’s big traders may now be compromised. BB Kerry Dimmer is an award-winning freelance journalist, focused on African business affairs. ISSUE 5 / 2020

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As the entire world hunkered down to ‘flatten the curve’ and slow the spread of Covid-19, we at Breakbulk Events & Media launched BreakbulkONE, a new way to help the project cargo and breakbulk community stay connected and informed. Here’s a selection of interviews from the last few months.

THE COST OF NOT COMMUNICATING Breakdown between EPC and Freight Forwarder By John Amos

Capital project contracts contain clauses with wording on penalties for delays and bonuses for early completion of the project. Millions of dollars are at stake resulting in engineering, procurement and construction management having a high-level focus on timely delivery of construction material. Vital to this effort is continual communication between the EPC, its freight forwarder, major subcontractors, and the client. As capital projects often have changes in scope during construction, it is imperative that all involved in the project be aware of the changes so they can react and adjust the project schedule. The following is an example where communications broke down on a project between the EPC’s logistics department and the freight forwarder. Construction material for a mining project in Montana was sourced in Europe to be shipped on a chartered vessel to Houston and then on specialized trucks to the jobsite in Montana. The long transit time needed to be monitored constantly to ensure timely arrival at the jobsite. Communication first broke down after the vessel departed the port in the Mediterranean. It was the vessel’s maiden voyage and three days out it lost its propeller and had to be towed back to port for repairs. Unfortunately, the freight forwarder did not notify the project’s logistics manager that it would take at least three weeks for repairs and resume the voyage and second, the logistics department failed to notify project management. Needless to say, the client, project management and jobsite management were very upset as the construction 76 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

schedule was set for the estimated date of delivery to the jobsite. The delay affected craft worker scheduling, crane and other equipment assignment (often under rental agreement) and adjustments to placement of other material scheduled to arrive around the same time. It also affected the contract with the specialized trucker who had to adjust the availability of his equipment and crew. The construction material was discharged at Port Houston and secured on several multi-axle trailers for permitted movement to the jobsite in Montana. Many permits were required from various highway agencies in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. A logistics department employee was assigned to ride with the trucks and report daily progress. The movement was uneventful until a major road accident occurred in Montana while crossing a narrow two-lane bridge over a small river. The trucks’ permit specified they cross the bridge single file with no opposing traffic. Unfortunately, a truck coming from the opposite direction tried to beat the permitted trucks across the bridge and struck the first truck killing its driver and damaging the bridge to the point it could not be used. The project material was not damaged but had to be rerouted across a bridge 50 miles distant that was rated for handling the overweight trucks. The police investigation resulted in preventing the loads from moving for three days. In this instance the jobsite was immediately notified, but there was a further delay as the Montana Highway Patrol would not allow the trucks to proceed until they completed an investigation of the accident. Luckily, all of the

material arrived at the jobsite with no damage, but there were several claims that took months to settle plus negotiations over the master contract project delay clauses. The lesson learned from this highly unusual string of events is that project communications must exist at all levels and include every department involved. The communications actions to be taken by each entity must be included and a final report produced for the files in case a claim is filed at a later date. BBONE

John Amos is an international logistics and transportation consultant specializing in issues related to planning, operations and regulatory issues. His experience encompasses the fields of ocean, air and surface transportation. For more than 45 years he has had international and North American positions in the fields of logistics, procurement and construction management.

More from Breakbulk Veteran John Amos: Near Calamity on the Way to Alberta Oil Sands Project https://www.breakbulk.com/Articles/nearcalamity-on-the-way-to-alberta-oil-sands Iraq: Long-term Planning Vital for Critical Operations Involving Employees, Families Under Dangerous Conditions https://breakbulk.com/Articles/amos-earlyplanning-helps-in-navigating-disas Project Crisis in Papua New Guinea Jungles https://www.breakbulk.com/Articles/project-crisis-in-papua-new-guinea-jungles Extreme Logistics: Kuwait Oilfield Fires https://middleeast.breakbulk.com/Articles/ extreme-logistics-kuwait-oilfield-fires ISSUE 5 / 2020

PORT HOUSTON NAVIGATES PANDEMIC Strategy is ‘Layer Upon Layer Upon Layer of Protection’ By Gary Burrows

Six months on from its first exposure to the Covid-19 pandemic, Port Houston continues to keep cargo flowing at the largest U.S. port for foreign waterborne tonnage. Ryan Mariacher, director of container operations, credits “layer upon layer upon layer of protection” for its staff, port operations, contractors and stakeholders. “First, and most importantly, cargo is still moving,” he said during an online presentation to the U.S. Exporters Competitive Maritime Council, Aug. 19, hosted by Breakbulk Events & Media as part of its Breakbulk365 program. During those first few days, there “seemed to be rampant concern that freight would come to a screeching halt, and panic skyrocketed,” Mariacher said. In fact, he said import and export dwell times “have decreased significantly and constantly since February, and we’re still working vessels and trucks,” he said. He added that vessel productivity is up, and truck turn times have been reduced to below 40 minutes, with less than five minutes of queue time at gates. For the first half of 2020, total tonnage is down only 5 percent, to 20.8 million tonnes, he said. General cargo and breakbulk decreased 18 percent to 4.4 million tons, with steel falling 45 percent to 1.3 million tons – though Mariacher was quick to point out that the soft energy market and trade policy impacted this sector more than the pandemic. Container volume slipped only 2 percent to 1.4 million TEUs, compared with record 2019 volumes, although container trade was down nearly double-digits. He noted that there had been 41 blank sailings, though vessel calls were up 3 percent through July and the port added container services. Even during the pandemic, the port

managed to set records for truck transactions at its Barbours Cut Container Terminal in July, processing more than 4,000 transactions per day. In July, total average daily container transactions at port terminals reached about 9,000, a level not seen since February, he noted. “Yesterday (Aug. 18) it was above 10,000. “So it’s not all doom-and-gloom,” he added.

LAYERING UP

The first Covid-19-related incident, the first positive test, occurred March 19. The port immediately cleared all workers, except for first responders and security staff, Mariacher told ECMC attendees. Fully two-thirds of the port’s workforce began operating from home, while the other one-third – terminal operations, port police and fire, port managers, stakeholders, International Longshoremen’s Association labor – “boots on the ground” – followed stringent guidelines to maintain safe, functional operations, Mariacher said. The port’s playbook was based foremost on U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, he said. “Sometimes it has been frustrating as guidelines evolved as more is learned about best practices,” Mariacher admitted. “But we’ve been consistent in relying on CDC guidelines.” He estimated the port has invested US$3 million in Covid-19 countermeasures. “As we learn more, we’ll change, adopt and adapt.” These best practices include temperature screenings at all entry points for staff, tenants, contractors and U.S. Customs and Border Protection staff. Sanitization stations were added to every work area, cleaning schedules ramped up for high-access areas, with up to multiple daily cleanings and weekly full disinfectant of all work areas. Essential worksites were properly distanced, masks and face

coverings required at all facilities. He also heaped credit on the port’s information technology department to be able to provide internal and external collaboration for staff to work smartly and remotely. Mariacher said as early as March, the port attempted to implement a biometric screening process, but it was reined in due to initial problems. “It was creating more problems than it was helping, but we got it up and running in the way it should be, and we kicked it back off and it has been a big win.” The port official couldn’t determine exact numbers of infected workers, but said a positive case kicks in a thorough investigation, including contract tracing. Response times for such investigations have improved from “a half-day if not longer … down to a couple of hours. “We’re providing a level of transparency and openness to the entire staff,” Mariacher said. “It has been invaluable as we’ve gotten feedback from employees about being in the know … It has been well received.” He noted that, despite Houston’s and Texas’ recent spike in Covid-19 cases, notifications of infections have gone from several each day to several weeks of consistent declines. Responding to a question about ensuring stevedores and vessel crew safety, Mariacher said the port has weekly calls with all stevedores, as well as daily interactions with crews at the terminals. “We have all countermeasures in place. We have weekly discussions either matching or being more strict than what we are required to follow our protocols.” Mariacher emphasized to the ECMC audience that the port’s foremost focus is supporting customers, stakeholders and users. “We don’t want to profit from issues, just as we don’t want to profit from a hurricane. We’re all struggling through this together.” BBONE www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 77

THYSSENKRUPP INDUSTRIAL SOLUTIONS WEIGHS IN Insights on Efficiency, Vetting and Technology Breakbulk asked Jörg Breker, senior executive expert logistics at thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions, or tkIS, four key questions to unlock the secrets to increasing efficiency for project construction in these demanding times. Q: Every industrial sector is looking at ways to increase efficiency and reduce costs. How do you approach this at thyssenkrupp, and within logistics specifically? To increase efficiency and to reduce costs is absolutely important for plant technology to survive. Global competition, high quality standards in engineering and product design and, last but not least, increasing customer demands like time to market, short erection times and competitive prices, need new approaches in execution. It is time to think new to reduce, or better, to eliminate non-conformity costs, speed up all processes in engineering, procurement, delivery and erection. This means that projects in plant technology must be planned and steered cross-functional from the start until the end of a project. Logistics end-to-end is the answer of modern execution of projects, starting in the acquisition phase of a project to find out all requirements, cost drivers and risks. In project execution, it is absolutely necessary to plan and steer all processes from construction site, transport and packaging to supplier site with actual data and information. Transparency is the key word. At thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions Mining, the Baffinland project was the pilot for a new end-to-end logistics approach in execution. Q: What are your top criteria for vetting transport and logistics suppliers? Have they changed recently? 78 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

Top criteria for vetting transport and suppliers is the ability of the logistics service provider, or LSP, to demonstrate innovation and new thinking. To create Jörg Breker transparent supply chains, thyssenkrupp end-to-end is a Industrial Solutions challenge today. Flexibility, agility and cost optimization are criteria for cooperation. New IT solutions and IoT (Internet of Things) integration are also important qualities for an LSP. Q: Will we ever reach a limit in efficiency gains, or will new technology continue to expand the horizon? New technology like IoT, data analytics, blockchain and AI will expand the horizon indefinitely. The possibilities of these developments will help both LSPs and companies like tkIS. In

our business we are at the beginning of the discussion, but many interesting talks about this topic along with new startups who develop solutions for our business give hope that in the near future, project logistics will reach new levels of efficiency. Q: As you look ahead, what trends do you see that will affect your sector? What could the impact be? Transparency about the supply chains, predictability and what-if scenarios based on actual data will help us to be faster, more sustainable, more flexible and agile, and in the end, more resilient. Decreasing non-conformity costs is one result and resilient supply chains is another more important result, especially in times like Covid-19. BBONE Jörg Breker is also a member of the board for Digital Hub Logistics e.V. and a member of the Advisory Board Research for Bundesvereinigung Logistik e.V. (BVL).

thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions shipped a 5,500-ton iron ore handling system from Bremerhaven to Baffin Island. Credit: tkIS.

ISSUE 5 / 2019

LOGISTICS PERSPECTIVE

MORE THAN A SUPPORTING ROLE BY MALCOLM RAMSAY

Industry Associations Morph to Aid Members

ramatically disrupting supply chains around the world, the Covid-19 pandemic has also had a lasting impact on those that lobby for and support breakbulk companies. These mode-specific industry organizations have been forced to rapidly evolve. While it has been a steep learning curve for many, this adjustment is starting to bear fruit for some associations, as new methods of working emerge and the role of collaboration in recovery becomes evident. In Europe, strong relationships between freight forwarders and industry bodies have helped businesses to stay afloat and raise their collective voice, due to cross-industry support. As Nicolette van der Jagt, director 80 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

general of the European Association for Forwarding, Transport, Logistics and Customs Services, or CLECAT, explained: “The crisis has

Nicolette van der Jagt

Matthias Maedge

CLECAT

IRU

demonstrated the crucial role that transport plays, with interrupted transport and logistics routes across all modes hitting our value chains and economies … looking at the recovery and support measures for industry, there is overall recognition that the global crisis caused by the pandemic will be long and transformational.” Matthias Maedge, director of advocacy at the International Road Transport Union, or IRU, also acknowledged the profound impact of the crisis on breakbulk carriers. However, there are upsides emerging: “The crisis has brought the industry together and shed light on the importance of commercial road transport when it comes to keeping goods and essential workers moving.” ISSUE 5 / 2020

UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGES

The unforeseen challenges that Covid-19 presented in the first half of 2020 starkly exposed the vast web of regulatory frameworks that breakbulk forwarders navigate as existing trade routes closed and cargoes faced significant delays and rerouting. Jordi Espin, maritime policy manager at the European Shippers’ Council, or ESC, highlighted the “severe hit” that members faced with all aspects of transport flows affected through altered traffic densities, relocation of loading and offloading points and national transport barriers. “The breakbulk industry is usually less affected by seasonality demand since production tends to be pushed out in a natural cycle, and is also affected with peak production curves. The current pandemic situation, however, has clashed with the intermediate stock warehouse positioning, and has tensioned the supply chain flow to extreme points,” Espin said. Stéphane Graber, director general of the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations, or FIATA, agreed, noting that the “pandemic has had a profound impact in communities, businesses and economies.” He added that FIATA members were particularly hit by the restrictions on trade and closing of international borders. One of the most immediate impacts for Europe-wide industry associations has been a rapid reconfiguration to bring greater clarity on issues at a national level. Where industry themes had tended towards international alignment prior to Covid-19, the sudden closing of borders created a more fragmented landscape for many breakbulk operators, requiring industry associations to provide targeted regional information. IRU’s Maedge highlighted this shift in priorities, with members focused on information about regulations, restrictions and financial aid. “We responded to these shifting needs with real-time updates for our members and the wider community, targeted lobbying activities and by contributing to the creation of tools such as the Green Lane app.”

The role of industry associations in developing the EU-wide “green lane” border initiative is one clear example of the evolving nature of these relationships, as industry-wide collaboration helped secure uninterrupted breakbulk transport across the continent in record time. “In close cooperation with members, CLECAT was, early in the crisis, in close contact with the [European] Commission, urging for a green lanes initiative and other harmonized solutions,” CLECAT’s van der Jagt explained. “We also highlighted that the free movement of workers, administrative paperwork and economic damage across the transport sector required immediate action. There was overall recognition from policy makers that keeping cargo flows running is vital for public health and the economy.”

SOLUTION-DRIVEN EXCHANGES

Alongside the impact on the day-to-day business of breakbulk transport, Europe-wide lockdowns have also had a profound effect on how members interact with industry representatives. The need to rapidly integrate remote working and new technologies has reshaped the dynamic of many relationships, accelerating a

shift away from face-to-face meetings. “We have seen more members joining online meetings, which allowed the CLECAT team in Brussels to voice the messages and the concern of the industry to the European Commission,” van der Jagt noted. “We hope to have more physical/live meetings again in the second half of the year, but with the uncertainties this may not happen. In any case, members are very pleased with the online meetings.” With a huge number of meetings taking place via online videoconferencing tools, one advantage has been that members can catch up with meetings that they were unable to attend initially. IRU’s Maedge noted the huge benefit of webinars both for member communication and for meetings of member groups, advocacy meetings with governments, the EU and international organizations, and for public webinars. At FIATA, the pandemic required the association “to be agile and rapidly implement new technologies to allow members to enhance solution-driven exchanges,” Graber explained. “As a federation, FIATA was there to support the needs of its members by providing them with timely resources which could be shared and integrated within their national contexts. Through a dedicated Covid-19 online

The Galileo Green Lane app promises to ease the flow of freight through borders, and enable the efficient transit of critical goods throughout Europe. CREDIT: ©GSA, ©EUROPEAN GNSS AGENCY

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 81

LOGISTICS PERSPECTIVE

platform, these addressed the impact of the virus on trade and provided guidance. “Many of these topics were already regularly dealt with, but they

increased in prominence during the crisis. Providing FIATA members with the tools for logistics connectivity during times of crisis was – and continues to be – a priority.”

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FOR KEEPS The move towards greater digital integration prompted by Covid-19 is unlikely to be reversed, with industry associations acclaiming the benefits of real-time connections with members. Matthias Maedge, of the International Road Transport Union, stressed a change in priorities when interviewed in late August with the “full focus” now on monitoring the situation, study of impacts and lobbying governments and authorities on recommendations for recovery. He also noted that the IRU has seen more interactions with its resource hub, FlashInfo, providing realtime updates on the situation at borders, regulation changes, as well as an increase in regular member updates and tools. Technology played a pivotal role in making these types of tools possible, said Stéphane Graber, of the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations. Regular videoconferences became the new normal and brought members closer together, allowing FIATA to ensure a coordinated

and unified response. “As the world sets to emerge after Covid-19, freight forwarders must continue to operate and adapt their businesses to ensure that goods can move to where Stéphane Graber they are needed at any given FIATA time,” he said. This transformation will also redefine responsibilities, according to the European Shippers Council’s Jordi Espin. “Shippers will have to consider their leadership in relation to intermediate stock positioning, since breakbulk transport cannot be considered just a commodity. Ports and freight forwarders have to rethink their role to become more flexible players and to be able to adapt to any uncomfortable situation.”

Top: FIATA’s dedicated Beyond Covid-19 webpage houses resources and guidance. Visit: fiata.com/beyond-covid-19.html CREDIT: FIATA

82 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

OUTLOOK

With projections for global breakbulk operations suggesting an extremely challenging year ahead, the case for stronger industry collaboration seems only set to grow. As CLECAT’s van der Jagt noted, the focus of the European Commission is on its recovery plan, which centers on support measures around green and digital transformation priorities. It is hoped that the agreement for a record Europewide bailout of more than €750 billion in July will support accelerated public investment in transport infrastructure across the continent, kickstarting the recovery of the transport sector in tandem with the development of cleaner and more sustainable mobility. New transport routes, emerging in the wake of the pandemic, are also expected to reshape the sector and focus on industry associations. ESC’s Espin noted that China has been severely hit by Covid-19, and this has triggered protectionist tools in countries to protect against Covid-19 infected territories. New sourcing areas have also created new transport flows that the industry was not prepared for. “Natural calendar cycles already are an asset for the breakbulk industry,” Espin said. “This, in combination with the Covid-19 [pandemic], has set out an uncertainty scenario that has translated to impacts for short-term planning.” He sees dry port areas increasing in many territories to reduce risk and to be able to respond to shippers and industry needs in terms of warehouse flexibility. Looking to new European Union initiatives, such as the Sustainable and Smart Mobility and Aviation Services packages expected in the fourth quarter 2020, CLECAT’s van der Jagt remained optimistic for the long-term prospects: “Apart from the gloomy picture of the near future, it is hoped that the crisis will impact the freight forwarding industry in a more positive way, building on indicators for increased resilience, visibility and sustainability.” BB Based in the UK, Malcolm Ramsay has a background in business analysis and technology writing, with an emphasis on transportation and ports. ISSUE 5 / 2020

EUROPEAN PORTS

EUROPE PORTS RESILIENT

ow things change. Covid-19 has brought new and very direct challenges across the board and, as the economic impact becomes clear, there are obvious concerns in the medium to long term. Europe’s ports have clearly been tested by the pandemic – and have come out fighting. At the start of 2020, the Port of Antwerp had every reason to expect another record year – after seven consecutive years of record volumes. “As soon as we realized that Covid-19 was coming and would not be limited to China and the Far East, we started addressing this,” said Wim Dillen, Antwerp Port Authority’s international development manager. “We very quickly realized … that it was going to have an enormous impact on what we do and what we will achieve this year and perhaps in the coming years.” Fortunately, Dillen said, governments immediately realized the importance of ports and the maritime sector as critical in terms of keeping supplies of food, drink, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment flowing.

BY FELICITY LANDON

A bremenports spokesperson said the ports “took organizational measures to ensure that the ports in Bremerhaven and Bremen would continue to be fully accessible, including by road, rail and inland water. No problems have arisen; the ports are operating 24/7.” Likewise, the Port of Antwerp created a task force about the same time, Dillen said, “not only the port authority but all the players in the nautical chain. This involved other ports along the Scheldt, including our neighbors on the Dutch side. It was multifunctional and very unified in monitoring,

measuring and sharing best practice.” As a result, he said, Antwerp had not lost a single hour of operations, “and that is quite an achievement when you look at the problems that existed,” Dillen said. At the Port of Hamburg, terminal operators were quick to change systems and working patterns in response to the pandemic, said Axel Mattern, CEO of Hamburg Port Marketing. “Very small groups have been working with each other so that if someone gets the infection, it would not hit all the workers,” he said.

CREDIT: AAL

Persevere Despite Covid-19 Upheaval

PORTS RESPOND

When met with the Covid-19 crisis, Bremen and its ports organized a task force to facilitate a close exchange between the port industry and authorities, according to Claudia Schilling, Bremen senator for science and ports. “The current crisis has highlighted the national significance of our ports and the port business,” Schilling said when the task force was developed. “The ports of Bremen are the driving force behind Bremen’s economy. Every fifth job is dependent on the ports. What’s more the port and logistics business plays a central role in the supply chains and consequently for ensuring supplies to industry and to the population of Bremen and the whole of Germany.”

Antwerp Port Authority responded to the Covid-19 emergency by creating a task force cutting across business sectors and borders. CREDIT: ANTWERP PORT AUTHORITY

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 83

EUROPEAN PORTS

WEATHERING THE STORM

Results have been mixed among European ports during the first half of 2020, partly due to the pandemic, but also because of other forces. A stack of issues have hit European ports since the start of 2020, including the impact of Chinese New Year on cargoes, followed by the Asian outbreak of Covid-19, further reducing import volumes. Shortages of materials for manufacturing and processing operations soon began impacting the Europe market. Then, as Covid-19 reached Europe, factories closed and entire supply chains were disrupted. The U.S.-China trade war has also had an impact on volumes. For Antwerp, steel had already been hit by two years of declines since U.S. President Donald Trump imposed duties on import steel. “Not only have we seen less steel going out to the U.S., but we have seen an even sharper decline in steel coming into Antwerp, after the EU imposed its safeguarding measures, with maximum quotas imposed for steel imports,” Dillen said. “We have lost another 30 percent in steel volumes in the first half, against 2019,” despite a slight rebound in June, linked to companies using up their quotas. “But as long as the trade war continues, we expect less steel will be handled in Antwerp.” As for project cargo, Dillen said the pipeline has struggled for more than a decade, with the 2008 financial crisis, oil glut and now the pandemic. But, since project orders are placed years out, “even a crisis doesn’t stop it, because what is in the pipeline must come out,” he added. However, the impact will be felt “when there is nothing left in the pipeline,” he warned. The fact that the oil industry is in dire straits with prices so low will also depress investment, he added. Hamburg reported declines in automotive cargoes as a result of the pandemic because most of the factories had closed, and therefore the manufacturers which supply the parts and pieces to the automotive factories were also affected. “However, the chemical industry continued to work at full pace and project cargo and heavy-lift operations continued 84 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

Trump’s trade war, and the EU’s response, have led to sharp declines in steel volumes – both export and import – through the Port of Antwerp. CREDIT: ANTWERP PORT AUTHORITY

without delays or interruptions, with adjusted systems and ways of working,” Mattern said.

MIXED FIRST-HALF

Despite initial setbacks, the Port of Antwerp recorded 4 percent growth in the first three months of 2020, compared with the first quarter of 2019. Part of that was due to vessels diverting to Antwerp during port strikes in France, Dillen said. The second quarter, however, was different, and the full impact showed in a 4.9 percent decline in volumes for the first half. Containers stayed stable, but conventional, breakbulk and roll-on, roll off volumes showed a double-digit decline for the six months, he said. At Hamburg, Covid-19’s impact started small, but grew dramatically, as first-half volumes fell 10 percent compared with the same period in 2019, Mattern said. Still, he added that the port has remained strong in industrial goods, steel products and chemicals, to the point that there has been pressure on shipping line capacity due to blank sailings – “which was good for the lines because they could keep their rates up,” Mattern said.

LOOKING AHEAD

There is plenty of reason for optimism in Antwerp, which is home to Europe’s largest chemical cluster. “All the companies in that cluster have decided over the past three years to make some very big investments in the Port of Antwerp,” Dillen said. “Basically, that will continue into the next years and it will bring project cargo in because some of these projects will have modules built in other parts of the world.” Among these, petrochemicals giant INEOS is investing €3 billion in the first cracker to be built in Europe for 20 years – Antwerp was announced as the chosen location last year. The port authority is demonstrating its own confidence – it has earmarked a plot of land south of Churchill Dock for a new dedicated breakbulk terminal. “We retain our interest in breakbulk and conventional shipping because it is also a sector where a lot of added value is being created,” Dillen said. Terminal operators as well continue to invest. PSA has invested heavily in its breakbulk terminal, buying five previously leased Liebherr mobile harbor cranes with lift ISSUE 5 / 2020

Collett moved the 160-tonne turbine and 120-tonne generator in collaboration with project partner Karl Gross.

CREDIT: COLLETT

running as normal” at the Port of Hamburg, Mattern said, “what will happen next year or the year after is difficult to say. The orderbooks are not really showing good signs and everyone is hesitant about investing in projects.” An important cargo generator for the port is Siemens’ gas turbine factory in Berlin. Units of 500 or 600 tonnes each are fabricated in Berlin and moved via inland waterway to Hamburg, where Siemens carries out final work before export. A new project is under way to build a hybrid push barge for this purpose, using hydrogen to generate the electricity.

WIND BENEFITS OSTEND

COLLETT DELIVERS ROOKERY SOUTH MACHINERY Haulage specialist Collett & Sons has transported a turbine and generator from the Port of Tilbury to the Rookery South Energy Recovery Facility in Stewartby, UK. The breakbulk project involved loading the 160-tonne turbine and 120-tonne generator in collaboration with project partner Karl Gross. A team from Collett carried out preplanning, using laser scanning technology, to prepare a suitable route that could accommodate the 4.8-meter-high turbine. “All movements were facilitated by Essex Police, ensuring prior warning and protection of all other road users, limiting the road-traffic congestion and ensuring extensive public safety. Upon delivery to the Rookery Site, the turbine and generator were removed

capacities from 83 to 144 tonnes, along with bespoke handling equipment for steel coils. Conti7, Zuidnatie and Steelduxx invested in Antwerp Rail House, which is connected to rail, road and water and provides a long shed for undercover loading/unloading of steel being moved by rail. The facility was inaugurated last year and has seen further investment in 2020.

from their respective trailers and underwent final installation,” a spokesperson for Collett said. Prior to delivery, Collett worked closely with the Port of Tilbury in planning the cargo discharge, including crane lift plans and an agreed program of works for all discharge operations. The Rookery ERF is expected to become operational in 2022 and has the capacity to sustainably dispose of 545,000 tonnes of residual waste. In turn, the facility will generate more than 60 megawatts of low-carbon electricity annually. Based in Halifax, England, Collett & Sons operates a fleet of heavy-lift trucks, trailers and SPMTs and provides breakbulk logistics throughout the UK and Europe.

At the end of 2019, Euroports and Zimmer Staal inaugurated a warehouse with capacity for 10,000 tonnes of steel a month. “Even in difficult times there are opportunities and there are companies that really believe and invest. If you have the cash to invest now in a period of crisis, you have a huge start when it is over,” Dillen said. While project cargo “has been

The Port of Ostend has played a crucial role in the construction and maintenance of North Sea wind farms over the past 10 years, and it has buoyed the port despite the pandemic. In June, the DEME Group’s installation vessel Apollo departed from the port’s REBO heavy load terminal loaded with the first two sets of Siemens-Gamesa wind turbines for the 487-megawatt SeaMade offshore wind farm. Components for the development – blades, nacelles and pre-assembled towers – started to arrive in March. The project, with a total of 58 turbines to be installed, has remained on schedule despite the Covid-19 crisis and is due to be operational at the end of this year, said the port. “Once this project is completed, the REBO terminal can also be used for other industrial activities,” said Charlotte Verkeyn, chairperson of the Port of Ostend. “Due to its unique location along one of the busiest sea routes and the existing infrastructure, the terminal is extremely suitable for handling heavy loads. By broadening the market to project cargo and decommissioning offshore wind turbines and oil and gas structures, we want to guarantee the continuity of the terminal.” BB Felicity Landon is an award-winning freelance journalist specializing in the ports, shipping, transport and logistics sectors. www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 85

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ECONOMY, EUROPEAN UNION GDP FORECAST

Economists initially predicted slight declines in GDP in 2020 – until Covid-19 came, and projected GDP for the year fell off the table. However, there’s a strong turnaround currently forecast for 2021. 2019

% 8 6 4 2 0

2020*

2021*

INFLATION FORECAST

UN IO N

EU RO PE AN

KI N G D O M

UN IT ED

KI N G D O M

SW ED EN SW ED EN

SW IT ZE RL AN D

SP AI N SP AI N

SW IT ZE RL AN D

N O RW AY N O RW AY

N ET HE RL AN D S

ITA LY

G ER M AN Y

FR AN CE

BE LG IU M

-2 -4 -6 -8 -10 -12

Inflation rates are expected to increase sharply in 2021.

% 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.5 UN IO N

EU RO PE AN

UN IT ED

N ET HE RL AN D S

ITA LY

G ER M AN Y

FR AN CE

BE LG IU M

-1.0

CURRENT ACCOUNT FORECAST

Current account balances are the difference between a given nation’s imported and exported goods, services and transfers and are an indicator of foreign trade trends. For the UK and France, trends are heading south.

200

314.2

250

269.7

354.9

300

150 100

UN IO N

EU RO PE AN

KI N G D O M

UN IT ED

SW IT ZE RL AN D

SW ED EN

SP AI N

N O RW AY

N ET HE RL AN D S

ITA LY

G ER M AN Y

FR AN CE

BE LG IU M

*Forecast

-535.5

-50 -100

-460.7

-113.4

50 0

Source: Consensus Economics, www.consensuseconomics.com 86 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

ISSUE 5 / 2020