GEFO spends big

SHOPPING FOR SHIPS

FLEETS • HAMBURG-BASED GEFO IS CURRENTLY MAKING THE BIGGEST INVESTMENT IN ITS 60-YEAR HISTORY, PREPARING ITS SEAGOING AND INLAND FLEETS FOR THE DEMANDS FOR CLEANER TRANSPORT

GEFO IS CURRENTLY involved in a €400m fleet renewal and expansion programme of its 150-strong fleet of shortsea and inland chemical and gas tankers. The company, founded in Hamburg in 1961 as Gesellschaft für Oeltransporte, is building 26 new vessels at specialised yards in China, Turkey, Romania and the Netherlands and is also aiming to acquire 13 modern vessels on the secondhand market.

GEFO’s shopping list includes nine new seagoing chemical tankers, three of 7,500 dwt and six of 3,800 dwt. All are equipped with stainless steel tanks to allow all types of chemical cargoes, including acids and alkalis, to be carried. Five existing ships have already been acquired, also for sailing with chemical cargoes. These include the 2018-built Gioconda, which has 14 stainless steel tanks and is ice class 1A.

The other 17 newbuildings are for inland waterway operation and include five gas tankers and 12 chemical tankers, 11 of which also have stainless steel cargo tanks, ranging in size from 1,500 dwt to 4,000 dwt. Four of the chemical tankers have already been committed under 10-year charters to chemical shippers. In addition, eight inland vessels have been acquired.

Naturally, all units destined for seagoing work, as well as those for the Rhine network and operations in the Antwerp-RotterdamAmsterdam (ARA) chemical triangle are all built with double hulls for reasons of safety and environmental protection.

CARRY MORE STUFF GEFO shipped some 18.3m tonnes of product in 2021, all of which was classed as dangerous goods with explosive or toxic hazards. For this reason, the company maintains intensive and sophisticated accident prevention methods and precautions throughout its technical, operational and specialist HSSEQ departments. “Safety for people the environment, cargo, ship

and port facilities is the priority in every transport,” the company says. “Zero incidents, zero accidents.”

Indeed, GEFO says, steadily growing environmental awareness among shippers of chemicals and mineral oils as well as tanker owners is what encouraged GEFO to undertake its fleet renewal and expansion, which represents the largest investment in the company’s history.

Last year, GEFO achieved revenues of some €430m, of which 80 per cent was derived from the transport of chemical products. The current fleet additions are expected to increase its throughput to 20.0m tonnes per year with revenues of €500m.

GEFO’s current fleet stands at 150 specialised tankers, of which half are owned and the others chartered in, often from captain-owners working in the inland trades. Following the completion of the current round of investment, GEFO’s total fleet capacity will be close to 430,000 dwt, with a carrying capacity of just over 500,000 m3. Of that, 35 stainless steel chemical tankers will represent some 133,000 dwt and 142,000 m3 . GEFO says that it will then have the youngest specialised tanker fleet in Europe, with an average age of 9.0 years for the seagoing fleet and 13.2 years for the river fleet.

EMPLOYMENT PROSPECTS GEFO notes that its maritime and inland waterway operations are dependent on economic development in Europe. Its 25 seagoing tankers work a range from the Baltic Sea to the western Mediterranean, operating anywhere between Finland and Spain; in terms of intra-European waterway logistics, it covers the Rhine system from the delta lands of Belgium and the Netherlands all the way upriver to Switzerland, as well as into France.

Many of those countries are at the forefront of increasingly stringent environmental expectations and GEFO’s newbuilding programme has responded accordingly. Many of the new seagoing ships have already been delivered from yards in China and Turkey and have been successfully put into operation. One of these, the 7,400-dwt Tosca, is equipped with LNG propulsion to eliminate emissions of sulphur oxides and particulate matter and to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides by 80 per cent and carbon dioxide by 25 per cent when compared to conventional marine gasoil propulsion.

Similarly, the 17 new inland gas and chemical tankers are equipped with Stage V engines in accordance with EU standards, along with selective catalytic reduction (SCR) converters, that significantly reduce emissions. GEFO has also developed a completely new flow-optimised hull form for both seagoing and river vessels, which delivers fuel savings of up to 30 per cent and a corresponding reduction in pollutant emissions.

SUSTAINABILITY GOALS GEFO is also endeavouring to make its ships carbon-neutral by 2045, in accordance with the Paris Agreement. It says this will require the successive replacement of its existing fleet with newbuildings powered by green hydrogen, green ammonia or green methanol, or equipped with battery power, within the next 20 to 25 years. GEFO says that, in its opinion, retrofitting existing vessels with non-polluting engines will not be worthwhile, since those vessels will by 2045 already be 25 years or older.

GEFO has already submitted concepts for hydrogen-powered propulsion systems to classification society DNV for approval. The German federal government is supporting this effort, which once realised would mean the first zero-emission seagoing cargo ships since the age of sail.

With its experience and expertise in gas shipping, GEFO is currently involved in the development of methods for the shipping and disposal of carbon dioxide at underground storage sites at sea. This process is not yet operational in Germany, though the company notes that it is already practised elsewhere in Europe, for instance in Norway.

These initiatives in the area of sustainability have seen GEFO again being awarded a silver rating by EcoVadis last year; a large number of tankers in the GEFO fleet as well as the company itself have also been recognised by the Netherlands-based Green Award Foundation, reflecting its “exceptional commitment” to improve its performance in environmental protection, safety and quality. Ships certified with a Green Award receive benefits including discounts on port fees at a number of ports in the region, demonstrating another positive effect that sustainability has on financial performance.

In addition, GEFO has recently been ranked 21st among the top 260 family-owned companies in Germany – and the only logistics and shipping company – in an exclusive study on sustainability and innovation by the business magazine Wirtschaftswoche. In addition to business development, the survey evaluated criteria such as trust, quality, innovation, sustainability and innovation.

Aside from its headquarters in Hamburg, GEFO operates offices in Antwerp, Duisburg and Luxembourg; its shipping activities are complemented by a worldwide bunker trading operation, for which it maintains a network that extends from Singapore to New York, South Africa and Australia. www.gefo.com