A valued and regular contributor to PES, Rickmers-Linie provides a worldwide network of liner services for the transportation of breakbulk, heavylift and project cargoes – including, increasingly, wind turbines. We talked to Gerhard Janssen, Director Marketing & Sales about the company’s continued expansion into North America, additions to the fleet, and future growth.
PES: Welcome back to PES. What’s the state of the wind transportation market at the
moment? When we last spoke, it was an area that was showing strong signs of
growth…
Gerhard Janssen: Wind energy has become a strong driver for the maritime transportation market. Europe, and here in particular the North Sea, as well as the USA, China or India, for example, are significant players as both receiving and manufacturing areas.
There is a huge volume of towers, blades, nacelles and other equipment and it appears as if this volume is going to even increase more. Wind energy as an environmentally friendly way of power generation is likely to play an important role for the energy mix worldwide.
PES: And how important is North America specifically to your business? Is it an area that you’re targeting growth in?
GJ: We are noticing large volumes moving into North America and the US in particular, mostly originating from China, Korea or Japan. However, Brazil’s importance as an export market is also growing.
PES: Are there any ports in North America that you’re looking to exploit further? Or possibly new routes?
GJ: We are continuing to serve Houston, New Orleans and Philadelphia as base ports in the US. However, we have been calling at both west and east coast ports on the requests of our customers, as our schedule generally allows for calls at other than our regular ports on inducement. Also, we are currently in the process of evaluating the feasibility of other trades. We have just started a cooperation with United Africa Feeder Lines to connect Europe via Jebel Ali with East Africa.
PES: Can we touch upon South America briefly? What – if any – activity are you seeing down there, particularly with regard to the wind sector?
GJ: South America, in particular Brazil, is showing a strong demand for wind energy equipment. Large volumes are deriving from the Far East. However Brazil also plays a big part in manufacturing wind components for both domestic supply and export.
