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BREB

Forging ahead on all fronts

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BREB

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PROFILE COMPANY

FORGING As a highly diversified, fully integrated shipping company, Cuxhaven-based BREB is at the centre of helping to connect countries and continents on many different levels. Managing Director Arne Ehlers spoke to Andy Probert on how BREB has evolved into a leading venture that offers some of the best logistics solutions globally.

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ounded in 1951 in Bremen as Bremer Reederei Eilemann & Bischoff, the main activity at the since restructured BREB GmbH & Co KG was initially to operate a liner service from Germany to Scandinavia, and to run the only joint liner service into the Soviet Union together with a Russian and Lithuanian shipping company.

Today, BREB has expanded and is now a unique company straddling the maritime sector, not only as a shipping company with its own vessels but as a liner service provider, charterer, forwarder, port agency and even a terminal operator.

Headquartered in Cuxhaven, at the heart of the German Offshore Industry Centre, BREB also has offices in Bremen and Mukran in Germany, in addition to international sites in Lisbon and Zeebrugge.

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“No two days are ever the same. It’s never boring here,” commented Managing Director Arne Ehlers, who oversees all these different strands of the business.

Fleet and liner strength BREB employs a fleet of modern geared multipurpose vessels from 4,000-9,000 DWT capacity in all European waters and North and West Africa, transporting breakbulk, bulk, special projects and containers.

Its core business consists of building up shipping services by combining deliveries of semi-/finished products – for example, paper reels, wood pulp and sawn timber – with the supply of commodities for production, including sawlogs, pulpwood, woodchips and pellets, and China clay.

For this purpose, BREB utilises different

contracts of affreightment for one or more clients and adds tramp shipping for maximum flexibility.

With a long history of carrying forest products of all kinds, today’s main commodity in both conventional liner services is sawn timber. Steel products, other breakbulk and general cargoes are shipped southbound.

Northbound, various kinds of dry bulk cargoes – sea salt, silica sand, biomass, fertiliser – are the predominant commodities. All different project cargoes are shipped as sole or part cargo to gain the best results for clients.

Mr Ehlers commented: “Our chartering department is experienced with many kinds of dry cargo, while BREB forwarding has developed new ways of hinterland logistics by rail, truck or barge.”

The original trading of forest products from Scandinavia to the continent and UK ended with the 2008 closure of a mill operated by one of the company’s main clients, leaving a fleet of modern-geared forest product carriers unemployed.

A year later, BREB began sending its first shipments of sawn timber to North Africa for Austrian Mayr Melnhof Timber Trading.

And by 2011, more ships sailed this trade than they ever did in Scandinavia.

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BREB

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Today at the Slovenian Port of Koper, the main loading port of sawn timber in the Adriatic, BREB is listed as the number one liner service, carrying sawn timber to the Maghreb states of Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. “This is the backbone of our liner service,” commented Mr Ehlers.

BREB’s Adriatic parcel service includes all major Adriatic ports and Koper as the liner hub. Up to six vessels are employed in this line offering the highest number of regular sailings of conventional tonnage to and from the Adriatic.

Operating since 2019, in cooperation with Scaldic Med Lines of Boeckmans, Belgium, the BREB continental line runs ten vessels ranging from 2,000-8,000 DWCC, both geared and gearless. This service calls at Scandinavian, German and ARAG-ports, UK and French ports en route, and the Iberian Peninsula.

In the Baltic Sea, BREB operates a container line between Sassnitz-Mukran, Germany and Baltiysk, Russia.

Meanwhile in the UK, Harwich based Brointermed Lines relies on BREB, together with Hugo Trumpy in Genoa to operate separate services from the continent to the Mediterranean. The companies agreed to combine forces with a vessel-sharing 6

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agreement from July 2020 and now offer a monthly dedicated multipurpose service linking Bremen, Harwich, Antwerp and La Spezia to the main Algerian and Libyan ports.

The last two three years have seen an increasing number of vessels sailing under the BREB flag along the coast of West Africa.

“The whole African continent shows a significant economical growth with a remarkable number of infrastructure projects,” stated Mr Ehlers. “In line with this development, BREB ships a lot of material for such projects from bulk cargos like clinker to project cargos including huge concrete pipes.”

Blue Water BREB Terminal In 2017, Blue Water Shipping, Denmark, and BREB opened the Blue Water BREB Terminal in Cuxhaven. Within the first year of operation, they discharged 2,000 wind energy components. Today, this business operates on up to 200,000sqm of land, handling more than 3,000 onshore and offshore wind energy components per year.

“By the number of components, we are Germany’s largest wind terminal,” confirmed Mr Ehlers. “Cuxhaven is now

becoming even more attractive for international project shipping.”

Hence, BREB’s decision to invest €5 million in a new LHM 600 Liebherr mobile port crane lifting more than 200 tonnes.

“The investment makes sense from an economic point of view,” commented Mr Ehlers. “Both the numbers of wind energy components annually and the use of everlarger ship tonnage by customers, together with the positive development in the onand offshore energy sectors at Cuxhaven, were crucial in this decision.”

In 2020, BREB took another significant step forward when, with several partners, it launched trial shipments of Silkroad containers from Baltiysk to Mukran. Since July 2019, BREB GmbH has been a member Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF) and was officially approved for the carriage of containers under a continuous rail waybill (CIM) from China to Europe.

BREB, with TE Bahnoperator, Mukran Port Terminals and EGP Eisenbahngesellschaft, founded the Baltic Sea Bridge, moving one block train every day from Monday to Sunday from Xi’an to Baltiysk.

From here, three BREB vessels – BREB MUKRAN, BREB BALTIYSK and from July 2021, BREB XIAN – take these containers

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on board. Not only is Mukran linked to this service, but also Sweden via Karlshamn and Immingham. The first call of BREB BALTIYSK arrived in early July 2021.

Baltic Sea Bridge GmbH is also taking care of a full service from Wuhan in China to the final destination in Germany and Sweden. From container booking, via rail service through Kazakhstan and Russia, sea transportation between Baltiysk and Mukran until delivery to the final destination, the whole service is offered out of one hand.

Up to 14 block trains are handled every week in this 24/7 service with up to four sailings per week in each direction between Baltiysk and Mukran. The aim is to ship a minimum of 40,000 TEUs.

Port agency BREB also offers port agency services in all German ports and the Antwerp-Zeebrugge range to shipping lines, charterers and owners, and offshore projects.

“Being a shipowner, BREB has a good understanding of what a vessel and owner need. Running our own liner services, we also understand the demands of a shipping line and charterer,” added Mr Ehlers.

At Cuxhaven, BREB acts as liner agents for UECC and Flota Suardiaz. From 2011 to 2014, BREB acted as general agents for E.ON in Cuxhaven on installations at the Amrumbank West windfarm. Furthermore, freight forwarding firm Deugro’s rapid pipeline service for Siemens Gamesa is served by BREB Belgium in Oostende and

by BREB in Cuxhaven and Mukran-Sassnitz.

Appointed by charterers and owners, BREB also provides services to conventional vessels for loading and discharging operations of project cargoes, generals, breakbulk and bulk.

Mr Ehlers acknowledged that while all activities had continued steadily during the pandemic, there was a 15% shrinkage in cargo volume for the first half of 2020 but

had rebounded by year end, with a 10-20% increase compared to 2019’s annual volume.

“We like to think that what defines and what makes us very different from the competition is that we operate a mediumsized company with a global view,” he said.

“We are internationally cross-linked, offer fast response times and being horizontally diversified, we gain a lot of information from different branches of the industry. We disseminate this to our departments and colleagues, and that enables us to combine any chain link in shipping to the benefit of the customer.”

Vision for a new vessel design Since 2019, BREB has been working on a new vessel design and hopes to move forward with a good number of ships in the 8,000 DWT class. Mr Ehlers explained that the vessel design seeks to combine all the different types of cargo the company moves without making it too overcomplicated.

“We are well-experienced in the 8,000tonne class, and the new vessel we envisage will be able to carry the sawn timber and also be contained fitted, with equipment with a twin-deck and optimised for deck cargo, such as for wind farm cargo.”

Mr Ehlers said the DNA of every activity performed under the BREB hub is to treat “suppliers and clients like you want to be treated. Respect, understanding and support are number one, and ensure you pay your bills properly. Never forget shipping is a person’s business. It’s more than just business. It’s like a big family, where you celebrate together, and sometimes you may have to fight.”

He added: “After 12 years of shipping crisis, the number of vessels, owners and operators has remarkably diminished. Since the beginning of 2021, we have experienced an ‘owners market’ and intensifying month by month.

“Bearing in mind the great number of postponed maintenance due to lack of liq-

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uidity, a massive installation of ballast water treatment systems, the number of ships in service will be further reduced by necessary shipyard stays in the next two years.”

Looking to the future Many of the traditional financing institutes in Europe have decreased or completely stopped their engagement in shipping.

At the same time, free space at most shipyards are rare to find, especially for the multipurpose tonnage.

“This is the major challenge which needs to be overcome as European ship owners need to modernise their fleets,” remarked Mr Ehlers. “Having said this, we should keep in mind that shipping is firmly determined to change to climate-neutral propulsion.

“Here, ship owners are not in the lead but depend on the energy majors to develop and define tomorrow’s fuel. Everybody agrees LNG is only an intermediate solution, and we need a liquid fuel like green methanol or ammoniac produced via green hydrogen. But we need a final decision so manufacturers of main engines know what they have to develop, and we can go ahead.”

He added that new fuel technology, together with unique ship designs, will have the greatest impact on shipping in the next few years. “However, it seems the worldwide container-business-model has passed its peak. Only mega-carriers and mega-container hubs can keep the system running at reasonable prices.

“It is these huge dimensions and, consequently, inflexibility that makes the worldwide container trade so vulnerable. Just look at Ever Given getting stuck in the Suez Channel or the lockdown of Yantian, the fourth-biggest container port.”

Yet he views BREB’s own journey in the short-to-medium term with positivity, concluding: “We see a lot of signs that suggest a stable and robust market for many years to come.” n Inside Marine

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