Month: February 2018

AAL SHIPS 45 OF AUSTRALIA’S LONGEST WINDMILL BLADES ON A SINGLE SAILING INTO ADELAIDE, FOR COLI BREMEN.

AAL has successfully completed three sailings into Adelaide with 45 windmill blades, turbine generators and other related components on each sailing, destined for the new AGL Silverton Windfarm in the Barrier Ranges of New South Wales. Comprising 58 turbines, the windfarm will reduce Co2 emissions by 655,000 tonnes annually and produce 200MW capacity (780,000 MWh of renewable energy) each year – enough power to maintain more than 137,000 Australian homes. At 63 meters in length, the blades carried by AAL are the longest ever to be shipped into Australia.

The Silverton Windfarm sailing is part a larger series of renewable energy cargo shipments into Australia carried out by AAL in partnership with COLI Schiffahrt & Transport GmbH (COLI) in Bremen. The total series comprises seven sailings into the Australian Ports of Adelaide, Newcastle and Kembla and harnesses the carrier’s ‘Mega-MPV’ 31,000dwt A-Class vessels, loading and transporting wind components from production facilities in Germany, Spain and China.

Eike Muentz explained the significance of AAL’s achievement, ‘Not only were these blades the longest ever to be shipped into Australia – a record in itself – but we managed to safely load and stow 45 of them on a single sailing, a first too. This enabled significant economies of scale for our customer and their stakeholders, due to the reduced number of total sailings needed. Safety, cost and time efficiency are primary concerns for our customers and we’ve built a reputation for going the extra mile to deliver. The satisfaction of a job done is even better when we can push the boundaries of what’s been possible before.’

Yahaya Sanusi added, ‘We worked on this project for months, making and revising calculations and stowage plans that could help us maximise cargo intake and economies for our customer. We almost exclusively employed 31,000dwt A-Class vessels on this project. With their exceptional cargo in-take of nearly 40,000cbm and weather deck space of 3,000m2, they were instrumental in enabling us to safely transport this huge number of blades on each sailing.’

Alain Akavi, Managing Director of COLI Bremen, concluded, ‘The success of any global logistics solution hinges upon the smallest detail being legislated for and dealt with and, with our renewable energy customers comprising some of the world’s leading brands and industry pioneers, we can’t afford mistakes. Their expanding global footprint, coupled with the increasing physical size of modern windmill components, places ever-increasing demands on us and our chosen partners to control time and cost efficiencies. Working with a carrier like AAL, that not only has the physical capability to do the job, but that shares our commitment to service integrity and quality, is imperative.’

Specialist multipurpose carriers and long-standing collaborators, AAL and Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM), are entering an exciting global cooperation that will see both carriers expand their trade route coverage, sailings frequency, and MPV fleet capacity. The cooperation will create a joint Far East – Middle East MPV Liner Service, served by five MPV vessels and a scheduled bi-monthly rotation. It will also see the expansion of HMM’s services portfolio with global tramp solutions, and semi-liner services provided by AAL. Both carriers will remain independent and promote these expanded services under their own respective brands.

The new Far East – Middle East MPV Liner Service will provide regular and scheduled sailings for breakbulk, project heavy-lift and general cargo shippers with five highly flexible MPV vessels (four 30,100dwt 640-Class from HMM and one 31,000dwt A-Class from AAL) on a 15 and 30-day sailing rotation. The service will connect the Asian markets of China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore with the Middle East via the Persian Gulf and Red Sea routes. Capacity and port coverage will be jointly coordinated, but each carrier will issue separate schedules to their customers, who’ll be able book space on any vessel serving the trade.

Namir Khanbabi, Chartering & Operations Director of AAL, explained: “AAL has run successful MPV liner services between Asia and its key trade partners for more than 20 years, and our expertise in collecting and combining multiple cargo types and parcel sizes on regular scheduled sailings provides significant value and efficiencies for our customers in multiple industry sectors.

“By pooling our resources with HMM, we can each offer more comprehensive service portfolios with improved frequency, capacity, coverage, and economies of scale for our customers. There will be no collaboration on pricing and we will each pursue bookings under our own respective brands, with separate commercial teams and bills of lading.

“The intention is to expand the service to six vessels, with an additional A-Class vessel by 2019. As more global projects become active in 2018 and multipurpose cargo volumes rise – as has been widely forecasted – we aim to be in pole position to competitively service this demand, whatever the cargo and wherever the destination.”

HMM is also expanding its portfolio with a range of global bespoke tramp solutions and semi-liner services – connecting the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia – operated by AAL. These flexible and multiple award-winning services are powered by a fleet of MPV vessels that combine extreme heavy-lift capacity with market-leading cargo intake and are served by AAL’s renowned in-house operations and engineering teams.

Seung-il Park, General Manager of HMM, commented: “We’ve established a leading position with Korea’s dynamic energy and infrastructure industries, operating regular multipurpose sailings between Asia and the West. These same customers can now take advantage of the exciting new services that our cooperation with AAL will bring, without seeing any change to either the team or the process by which they make their current bookings.

He concluded; “There are no immediate plans for a more expanded cooperation but, should there be meaningful opportunities to generate further value for our respective customers through an expanded collaboration, this will be thoroughly reviewed as and when.”