As Managing Director of Seaports of Niedersachsen GmbH, Andreas Bullwinkel governs a port infrastructure that is perfectly-placed and optimally-equipped for the wind industry. The nine locations have benefited from massive investment, and that finance is starting to bear fruit for the European industry as a whole. We spoke to the German businessman.
PES: Welcome to PES magazine. Can you firstly explain a little about your operation and how you serve the wind industry?
Andreas Bullwinkel: Thank you for welcoming us. Seaports of Niedersachsen is an association of port business companies within the nine seaports of the Federal State of Niedersachsen at the German North-Sea coast. We act as the marketing-organisation for those nine ports (Brake, Cuxhaven, Emden, Leer, Nordenham, Oldenburg, Papenburg, Stade and Wilhelmshaven – in alphabetical order).
Our aim is to promote these nine seaports with their numerous port handling service companies, supra-regionally operating logistics networks and specialists for port services of all kinds. Our ports have a special focus on non-containerised cargo so far. Some of the port operating companies belonging to our association have handled components for the onshore wind energy-industry for more than ten years.
In other words: they’ve gained a lot of experience in how to handle these sensitive parcels. The terminal handling companies also added several special services for the wind energy industry, such as just-in-time logistic services, warehousing, spare parts logistics for the plants, anti-ageing and corrosion coatings, technical services and inspections just to name a few of the value added services along the supply-chain.
