Raymond Fisch, Senior Vice President, at BBC Chartering, talks to PES about the changes in the shipping market, the importance of training and the strong ethos which runs throughout the company.
PES: Welcome back to PES Wind magazine. It’s been two years or so since we last spoke. Thanks for talking with us. For our new readers would you like to begin by explaining a little about the background of BBC Chartering and how you currently serve the wind industry?
Raymond Fisch: Thank you PES. BBC Chartering continues to be the leading force for industrial ocean transport services and also to the wind power industry. We have continued to operate the world’s largest fleet of project carriers, the leading project chartering network and with 34 offices around the world the leading global service for integrated transports of any cargo. In 2016 we operated more than 180 vessels and a peak fleet capacity of more than 2.1mln. DWT.
Although the shipping markets are generally slow, we have seen an unprecedented growth of the wind power sector over the past few years. Our share of bookings for the sector increased significantly by over 60% alone in 2016. This is strongly driven by US wind power developments, especially the Fareast, which was a great originator of export volumes for wind power. But also South America and Europe could strengthen their exports in the industry. Meanwhile we also observed significant increase in their import bookings. A clear sign of how global wind power supply chains have become.
PES: How has the wind sector business changed during this time?
RF: With the growing importance of global sourcing strategies in wind power, the sector is also trying to benefit from the weak shipping markets. The industry is looking for efficient, reliable and the highest performing transport solutions. In general we are noticing that more responsibility gets transferred to us, as a new strategic partner to the industry. This trend is not entirely new but, it has gained new momentum on the one and hand and on the other is countered by increasing spot orientation for wind power projects
There are many large developments under way and principally BBC Chartering serves the sector through three different types of chartering services. One is on a standby basis, second is on a dedicated project basis and third is as a strategic volume partner to industrial customers.
