Wilhelmsten Maritime Services To Shape Future Of Global Shipping Services Industry

By Yong Soo Heong KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 3 (Bernama) -- Wilhelmsen Maritime Services (WMS), one of the world's largest shipping services company with an annual revenue of US$1 billion, wants to shape the future of the global shipping services industry with leading edge solutions and continue to grow in the next 150 years, says the company's president and chief executive officer, Dag Schjerven. He said WMS, which is part of the global Wilh. Wilhelmsen Group of Norway, was well-poised to serve the global merchant fleet as ship owners were increasingly seeing the benefits of outsourcing services to professional companies. "Presence is the key word for us. We operate round the globe and we have been very well received by the industry because of our expertise to provide various engineering and other support services amidst the changing business and regulatory environment. "We are confident of growing in the next 150 years because of the expertise and experience that we have acquired to service the global shipping industry and as ship owners seek to outsource certain services that we know best," Schjerven told Bernama during the group's recent 150th anniversary celebrations here. The origins of the Wilh. Wilhelmsen Group began in 1861 when the founder, Morten Wilhelm Wilhelmsen, then aged 22, bought a sailing vessel, Mathilde, in the small coastal city of Tonsberg in Norway. The company then bought its first steam freighter, Talabot, in 1887. After Talabot's performance exceeded all expectations, the company decided that all its vessels should be named after the letter "T”. Today, the group is helmed by Thomas Wilhelmsen, a fifth generation descendant of the founder. The group's car and roll-on, roll-off (ro-ro) fleet controlled almost 130 vessels that had been purposely built to transport cars, trucks and heavy cargo which represented about 25 per cent of the global market share measured in car equivalent units. As for WMS, it operates three main business areas through Wilhelmsen Ships Service, which focuses on products, safety and environmental services, ship agency and maritime logistics for the merchant fleet. Wilhelmsen Ship Management focuses on safe and efficient vessel operations of ships by providing efficient technical management and competent crew while Wilhelmsen Technical Solutions offers environmental, safety, heating, ventilation and air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAR-R) power solutions for new ships and retrofits. Schjerven said WMS, being the world's largest maritime services network, serves 2,200 ports in 71 countries and its main focus was to deliver improved vessel operating efficiency to the world's merchant fleet. He said the maritime services and ship owning or freight business supported one another but reckoned that maritime services could act as a buffer during bad times as they were more stable and not so cyclical. During the recent financial crisis, he said maritime services of the group only saw a 15 per cent drop in revenue but shipping services dropped more than 50 per cent. "From an owner's perspective, this diversification has helped the group to survive in bad times," Schjerwen said. For the future, he said WMS would capitalise on its expertise in managing other people's vessels, especially in the light of new regulatory requirements which meant that all vessels would need to comply to new standards, especially the "green cycle" or environment-compliant standards. "WMS stands ready to offer ship owners to deal with new environmental and safety systems. It is easier to get someone who knows the system. "For example, there would be regulations to prevent the discharge of ballast water from two different water ecosystems as this could introduce microorganisms from different environments. "As such, ship owners have to comply with the new regulations. For owners, this is a cost and hassle. For us, we view this as a business opportunity. we see business of US$2.5 billion to US$3 billion a year," said Schjerven. Another promising business sector identified by WMS is the liferaft exchange programme to help ship owners eliminate the hassle of buying and maintaining adequate numbers of liferafts on their vessels. Schjerven said this meant that ship owners can go to any port to exchange the liferafts supplied by WMS that were regulation-compliant. As for its Malaysian operations, he said that its hardworking and educated workforce as well as superior infrastructure facilities has emerged as a strong contributor to WMS's businesses. "We consider Malaysia to be a very important part of our organisation's global business and it's a big market for us," he said. Asked how Malaysia could continue serving the interests of WMS, Schjerven said: "What is necessary is a stable political regime that makes our lives comfortable and a government that has a business mindset that is always working to have less bureaucracy and getting more trade done." More specifically, he said a government that was always looking at improving logistics and infrastructure and investing in new technologies at the ports would help the shipping industry. "The idea is to help owners improve their efficiency at the ports. If not, they can opt for other neighbouring ports which could mean loss of revenue for the country. "In the context of ports in Peninsular Malaysia, shippers could have an alternative in Singapore and then transport their cargo by road. As such, it is important that all players at Malaysian ports would have to improve their efficiency. "A primary benchmark is the turnaround time as ship owners need to keep their assets (ships) moving. it is easy to measure. If they lay idle at the ports because of congestion or inefficiency, the operator will lose money. A ship cannot be anchored too long at a port," he said. In Malaysia, WMS is represented by two of its business units, namely Wilhelmsen Ships Service (WSS) and Wilhelmsen Ship Management (WSM). WSS is headed by managing director Winston Loo at KL Sentral here and operates from 12 offices around the country covering 19 local ports. WSM is headed by its president, Carl Schou, and Malaysia is the global headquarters of WSM. The Malaysian operation is the second largest outside of the group's headquarters in Norway. Schjerven said the relatively inexpensive cost structure in Malaysia was extremely significant to a services-based company like WMS as "this is a very global activity because we are serving some 2,200 ports around the world through 400 offices in 71 countries." "We supply services to about 22,000 ships on an annual basis, which is about 50 per cent of the world's merchant fleet." Another important but little known service operated by WMS is the lay-up service in Labuan, which was established in 2009 to enable ship owners to mothball their ships in sheltered waters until business picks up. "The business varies. If times are good, there are not so many ships in lay-up. We have about 160 people in Labuan to ensure that the ships are seaworthy when the owners decide to use them later. "This is an important service because ship owners have two options during bad times. They can continue to operate their ships and lose money or lay their ships up and save money," said Schou. He said WMS was the only licensed and certified lay-up operator in this part of the world and WMS has a similar lay-up operation in the Philippines. In addition, Schou said WMS was also looking at another business opportunity that Malaysia could offer -- in the environmental recycling or "break up" of shipping parts from un-seaworthy vessels. He said presently there were a number of countries that offered "break up" activities but they were not done in an environmentally-friendly way in that oil and chemical spillage occurred along the way. Schou said China was another country that could offer good potential for such a business in view of its long coastline and existing shipyard facilities. -- BERNAMA