June 2022 - There is pressure in Europe to increase the amount of energy generated from (non-nuclear) renewable sources, although the market is not sure that the goals for renewable power generation favored by politicians are necessarily achievable in the near term.
Nevertheless, as global shipping company BBC Chartering is in the business of supporting clients that take on challenges contributing to a sustainable development of our globalized community. Since the beginning days, BBC Chartering has been moving along with a global energy industry which is busy in engineering, procuring and installing greener and more efficient means of power generation worldwide.
In the past BBC Chartering has provided near shore logistic services for turbines, blades and tower components as dedicated project carrier for a UK-based offshore development. Now, with offshore projects progressing also in Germany, there is similar demand that also requires intelligent ‘short sea services’ to ship for instance wind turbines, transition pieces or foundation structures. With that comes demand for engineered shipping and transport solutions e.g. to deliver these components from the manufacturing site to the selected base harbor of a wind farm project or another fabrication yard where they may be completed or stored before being picked up by other vessels for their further usage.
Responding to this demand, BBC Chartering offers its versatile heavy lift and project ships to operate in the North Sea and Baltic supporting regional logistics as ‘short sea carriers’. As a first one, the company has positioned the ‘BBC Germany’, a 7,500dwt vessel with 2 x 250mt lifting capacity. The vessel has a high lifting capacity, compact dimensions and shallow draft making it an efficient carrier for project shipments in Northern Europe. In a current one-year project this vessel is involved in delivering 80 transition pieces for the German offshore wind farm ‘Meerwind Süd & Meerwind Ost’. The transition pieces are built by ‘AMBAU GmbH’, a fabricator of steel structures for the offshore wind industry and transported from Bremen to Cuxhaven, a short sea distance not even measuring 100 nautical miles.
In charge of the ‘Meerwind’ project is the WindMW GmbH, a Joint Venture of the ‘Blackstone Group’ and the ‘Windland Energieerzeugung GmbH’. The wind park is located 23 km north of ‘Helgoland’ and will operate 80 wind turbines of Siemens (3.6 MW). Upon its completion in 2013, the wind farm is estimated to deliver power for ~360,000 households. It will then be the first offshore wind park in Germany which is built and operated by a private investor.
BBC Chartering’s CEO Svend Andersen says: ‘With the new service we respond to the requirements of the industry in the North Sea and the Baltic. We are happy that the ‘BBC Germany’ helps to satisfy the needs of our clients not only in the offshore wind sector.’ He continues: ‘We are excited about this first project in Germany and we look forward to tackling many more challenges in the future.’
Leading EPC and freight forwarders rely on BBC Chartering as maritime partner that ensures that a transport is engineered as required and managed without compromising on operational quality, environmental aspects and occupational health and safety issues.
Certainly this late project marks another milestone in the history of BBC Chartering that supports global economic development and the realization of ‘high impact businesses’.