Aluship by East Coast Promotions

COMPANY PROFILE

2014

Aluship Technology

+48 58 769-15-74 | www.aluship.com

Aluminium offshore oil and gas expertise from Poland

Editorial: Christian Jordan

Aluship Technology is Poland’s leading offshore oil and gas engineering construction company, building complex facilities for big name energy companies from around the world. Chairman and Founder, Goetz Linzenmeier tells Total World Energy more about the on-going growth of this innovative and exciting organisation…

When you think about the global offshore oil & gas industry, you might think about countries like Norway, France, Holland, USA, UK, Australia, South Korea, Brazil or Singapore as some of the big name players but what do you think when you hear Poland? Perhaps Polish exports like vodka, Chopin or Pope John Paul II come to

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mind before expertise in offshore oil and gas. But one business, based in Gdańsk on the Baltic coast, is looking to change that and is currently proving that Poland has excellent capabilities, knowledge and facilities for production in the oil and gas, maritime and civil engineering industries. Aluship Technology specialises in

engineering and construction of offshore facilities, mega yachts and general vessels and also repair and conversion and civil engineering, with a focus on working with aluminium. The company was founded by Goetz Linzenmeier, a German whose interest in the maritime industry sparked the formation of Aluship Technology, 24

Aluship Technology years ago. “I started my activity in the maritime aluminium welding construction industry in 1990 in Hamburg and I started to build one-off custom designed sailing yachts. It was nice but labour intensive, and at the end of 1993 I started to move the small company to Poland and Gdańsk where I found the perfect place with skills, knowledge and history in similar industries. “I further developed the company, training people and growing from a small workshop to an industrial company over the last 20 years. Now we have over 170 permanent employees, we own a four and half hectare plot in the harbour of Gdańsk with a 10,000m² production hall and a 3500m² administration, engineering workshop and we have a very well organised ISO 9001 certified business with independent quality control, high health, safety and environmental standards and very efficient production process flows. “With quality and value for money from the client’s point of view, we are

well regarded giving very high quality, always on time and being pro-active with short response times. “In the 90’s, labour costs in Poland were significantly lower and with one off custom designs, which were very labour intensive, it became commercially unviable in Germany so I had to make the decision to move the operation to a country with lower costs but with skilled people and long traditions and Gdańsk was the perfect place,” Linzenmeier explains. And over the last two decades, the company has grown to become extremely well respected across Europe and in international markets and Linzenmeier is happy with the progress that has been made. “I was a passionate sailor and because of that and other reasons I decided to start this entrepreneurial adventure and I do not regret it,” he says.

OIL & GAS Aluship began working in the offshore

oil and gas industry after great success with yachts and other vessels and the company’s initial contract in this new industry came from a Swedish company after Linzenmeier decided that the company should diversify in order to grow. “Our work in oil and gas started in 2006 because of my intention to diversify our activities into three distinct areas; special ship building, the oil and gas industry, and mega yacht constructions. The first major project was for two big stair houses for Pharmadule Emtunga, now Apply Emtunga, in Sweden,” he says. Success with its early projects in oil and gas has seen Aluship move onto bigger and more complex projects and the company is currently working on its most prestigious offshore project to date – the Gina Krog project from Total in the Norwegian North Sea. “In 2010, we proceeded with permanent special oil and gas constructions for rig related enclosures for filtration units, special technical

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enclosures, enclosures for gas turbines and anything else that could be built in aluminium,” says Linzenmeier. “We always aimed for larger structures and today we are engineering and building aluminium accommodation modules for Apply Leirvik, for their Gina Krog project where we are building a big living accommodation structure including detailed engineering and we are happy to have the Apply Group as another strategic client in our portfolio as we have Oceanco in the mega yacht field and Fjellstrand AS in special ship building where we recently delivered the zero emission ferry, Ampere 1. “The current Gina Krog project with Apply Leirvik is one of the most prestigious jobs we have done in the oil and gas industry. We started construction last month and it shall be delivered in May next year.” And Aluship’s focus on aluminium makes the company stand out from the crowd in the European market as there

also more or less unique in our potential and size regarding projects we can deliver. There are very few in Europe who can deliver big living accommodations or very large mega yacht super structures or large ferries like we can. In engineering, production, facilities, capabilities regarding project management, and handling of complex documents we are quite unique,” says Linzenmeier. And even with the reported shift in attitudes in the offshore construction industry, with many big name energy companies looking to China for building services because of its cheap prices and skilled workforce, Linzenmeier is not overly concerned with competition saying the company’s aluminium work and reputation for quality are strong. “For our company directly, the Chinese are only marginal competitors right now. “We only see this at the borderlines of the market. It’s more concerned with big projects like entire rig construction and platform building. We have seen in the past that when European companies order products from China, very soon after delivery, that product will arrive in a European shipyard to correct mistakes and improve quality so if the saving is worth it, I don’t know.

are many shipyards and engineering companies will great capabilities but not many who use aluminium as a predominant material. “In our complex service as a supplier of aluminium structures which includes engineering, we are quite unique. We are

“We are not a shipyard; we are a supplier to shipyards and big oil and gas companies. Aluminium is a very versatile material and in shipbuilding as well as oil and gas one important thing is not just weight but centre of gravity. The ideal situation for a ferry or commercial

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vehicle is to translate the weight saving into additional payload and aluminium is the most profitable material for ship construction when it comes to this and if you have a fast vessel, you need the weight saving to meet the top speed with less energy,” he says.

BUILDING A STRONG FUTURE Aluship is a growing company and Linzenmeier is looking to continue building on what is already a strong workforce by investing in training and development of talented local people as well as opening offices in strategic locations in Europe, in areas with a connection to the offshore oil & gas industry. “We will open an office in Aberdeen in the UK at the beginning of next year together with an agent and we are also interested in opening more offices not only related to oil and gas but also our other business sectors in the future,” he says. “We have interesting stories in our workforce; there are some people who were with the company 20 years ago and who remain here today. “The challenge is recruiting qualified staff, therefore Aluship Technology is one of the most active companies in the north of Poland, not only in advertising for staff who are active in the industry, but also in basic education of young people, developing in-house education programmes, cooperating closely with welding schools and also closely cooperating with the chamber of commerce and technical schools to support them and help develop programmes which are more focussed on our activities. We want to work with young talent from a technical point of view and that is why we are working with the technical university in Gdańsk to look for young talented engineers,” he adds. Gdańsk University of Technology has faculties covering electrical and control engineering, civil and environmental

Aluship Technology engineering, mechanical engineering and ocean engineering and ship technology among other subjects and could help to create an extremely capable labour pool for Aluship.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY In an important development for the future, Aluship recently celebrated the delivery of its latest vessel, Ampere 1 to Norwegian ferry operator Norled. But this is not a normal vessel, this is the first of its kind in the world, powered completely by electricity. “Ampere 1 is an 80 meter, fully battery powered catamaran ferry. Its engineering concept is unique and it’s the first of its kind in the world for its size; having no diesel engine, being completely electrically powered. This vessel, and maybe a second vessel very soon, will operate in the Hardangerfjord under the operational management of ferry operator Norled.

The vessel will cross the fjord in 20 minutes and during the 10 minute boarding period it will be connected to the onshore grid to partially recharge. During the night, the batteries will be fully charged while there is no operation. This concept is very clean, very eco-friendly and very cheap for the ferry operator,” Linzenmeier explains. The idea for a fully-electric vessel comes off the back of the success seen in the industry with hybrid diesel vessels and Linzenmeier says that the reaction to the cost saving and environmental savings of hybrid vessels has been very good. “There has been a positive response to ferries with hybrid diesel engines which reduce fuel costs by 21%. Currently, there is another vessel under construction which will provide savings of 25% and this will be the cheapest in operation. Money talks so this has been

a breakthrough in the market, not only in Norway with ferries but also in much wider applications.” And these applications could include activity with crew transfer vessels or other medium-sized supply vessels in the offshore energy industry. “Right now, Ampere 1 is for short distances and is working very well. It’s very clean, very cheap and showing great potential for the future,” says Linzenmeier. And with the second fully-electrical vessel set for delivery in 2015, it seems that Aluship has found another niche market space which will be hugely beneficial, not only to Aluship, but to the wider maritime industry. And all of the innovation and visionary forward thinking is coming straight out of Gdańsk proving that Poland’s offshore and maritime industry sector is becoming more and more developed with each passing year..

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