Tough economic times mean shipping companies are looking to wind farm development to fulfil capacity. Raymond Fisch, Senior Vice President of BBC Chartering explains to PES how they are expanding despite intensifying competition.
PES: Welcome back to PES. It’s been some time since we last spoke, can you give us an update on how the business has been faring in 2011?
Raymond Fisch: The outlook for the general cargo and project market is far better than it has been for the past two years. There seems to be a healthy demand and sensible order-books in various industry sectors. Still, the issue is that the project cargo sector is emerging from its downturn situation and faces intense competition from both dry bulk tonnage and “pure” container carriers, i.e. excess capacity that is currently squeezing the break-bulk market.
PES: Similarly, how buoyant is the
wind sector in particular for you at
the moment? Is it an area that is
showing growth?
RF: The wind sector is relatively stable, it is however a low return business. Growth is a matter of definition, and as available capacity from other shipping sectors is coming in to the wind industry, it is very difficult to determine.We can say that next to the general onshore developments, we see an increase in transport enquiries for offshore wind park development projects, and being more Europe centric this requires intelligent near-shore logistic solutions.
