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Issue 7 2020 - FBJNA


///BREAKBULK


Atlantic Container Line’s Atlantic Star, built in 2015, is one of ACL’s five G4 vessels. (ACL photo.)


Breakbulk sector powers through pandemic with help from wind energy


By John Jeter


While COVID-19 has figuratively taken the wind out of the world’s economic sails, it turns out wind energy is helping propel the breakbulk sector through the crisis. That’s due to the increasing—or at least for the moment, steady demand for


wind turbines. Chipolbrok, for instance, this year sailed several charters power


project


loaded with wind- cargo,


with


ships from Asia making port calls to Sagunto, Spain, and Cuxhaven, Germany, among multiple destinations, as well


as an April charter with a “full load of tower sections for an offshore project” in the Netherlands, the company said. In addition, a spokeswoman


for the Chinese-Polish Joint Stock Shipping Co. said the company regularly ships wind blades into the Gulf of Mexico, as well as to Mexico and


“sometimes to the U.S. West Coast and Canada. “Every month, C-P has a


vessel with a full deck load of wind blades,” she said. “As such, Chipolbrok cooperates with all the big names in this global wind industry and can claim a leading position in this market segment.” Started in 1951, the carrier


began deploying specialized vessels for the wind-power industry in 2003. As of 2016, Chipolbrok anticipated a boom in the world’s alternative-energy market. Started in 1951, the carrier


began deploying specialized vessels for the wind-power industry in 2003. In 2016, Chipolbrok clearly anticipated a boom in the world’s alternative-energy market. “Windmills had always been more of an MPP play, but the


Wind Gusts


Forecasts in wind-energy production are all over the map, but Global Market Insights reported in late September that the worldwide


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majority of blades are carried on dry bulk ships,” as Rob Aarvold, General Manager, Swire Bulk, told “American Shipper” months before the coronavirus outbreak.


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