AAL’s Christophe Grammare: Heavy-Lift Ships Forge Their Own Freight Path
By Carly Fields
The multipurpose vessel market is undergoing significant changes, with the container and bulk markets no longer driving its fortunes, according to Christophe Grammare, managing director of AAL Shipping.
The bulk market suffered a trough due to the slowdown of China’s production, while the container market has declined sharply. However, the MPV market is doing well on the back of contracts signed in 2022.
Speaking with Breakbulk, Grammare said the MPV market had always been driven by the other two sectors, but for the first time in his career, he saw “a path where at least MPVs are making their own way.”
He said the MPV market had cooled down, with rates coming down as a result of a “standoff” between shippers, expecting a further decline of freight levels in line with the container sector, and project carriers, still having strong forward bookings.
Grammare said he saw the heavy-lift market staying steady, at reasonably sustained freight rates, with supply and demand of ships about matched.
He highlighted the importance of a more harmonious relationship between forwarders, shippers and carriers, which he believed the last two years have brought about. This has levelled up the playing field – which was needed – and given AAL the opportunity to plan longer term together with clients.
“I feel like the last two years have brought more of a balanced relationship,” he said. “There is an open dialogue. Typically, in a shipper’s market, shippers can pick a ship easily, so there’s no need for planning too far ahead for cargo movements. Now we have closer communication with shippers on their upcoming needs and greater transparency in our negotiations.
“This has been a wake-up call and now our clients and AAL are working together on a more level basis. We certainly don’t want to overcharge customers on the freight, rather we aim to quote levels which are sustainable. At the same time, we need them to understand the cost of running ships and what it takes to deliver the regularity of sailings and quality of global service they demand.”
AAL has designed a new generation of ships – methanol-ready and featuring three, 350-tonne cranes with a maximum 700-tonne lift and 80,000 CBM cargo intake – and is investing in emissions reporting and improvements in sustainability.
“It’s perfect timing because at an average age of 10 years our core fleet is not old. It’s a reasonably young fleet,” Grammare said. “The newbuildings were designed by our own engineering team, with our project cargo customers in mind, and have both technical and design innovation, with greater cargo intake, accommodation forward – which helps with sailing visibility – and an extendable deck on the starboard side. This will give us a chance to operate and test these vessels before we further renew the existing fleet.
“The challenge is more for the longer term: what will the next generation of ship looks like? We’ve got a design now coming out, the ships are methanol ready, they are fitted and ready to go and will be delivered in a year. But I don’t think the market will be ready to supply methanol, so we are really in that ‘in between’ window where there’s only so many things that can be done. And yet we are aiming to be carbon neutral as an industry. That is going to be a quite a process.”
Addressing the issue of measuring emissions in the MPV sector, Grammare said that MPVs get the short end of the stick compared with container ships and bulk vessels.
Heavy-lift vessels are designed to safely transport cargoes of extreme size and weight, typically requiring reinforced tank tops, twin decks and hatch covers as well as a reinforced structure to withstand the additional forces, point load, torsions and bending moments generated when loading heavy cargo or transporting inhomogeneous loads.
With such designs, heavy-lift MPV vessels are typically “sturdier” but also “heavier” than equivalent size container or bulk carrier vessels and therefore comparatively less fuel efficient – but they have been included in the same standards. “So, we are already penalized,” he said.
“But it’s early days and what we have found is that usually logic prevails. The heavy-lift fleet is fulfilling an important role in the project transportation market, and we are sure that eventually it will be assessed under its own merits and characteristics rather than widely declared uncompliant.
“Nevertheless, we are encouraging our customers to be more selective about their carrier choices – based upon sustainability and ESG parameters – and understand that the long-term viability of the sector demands that every stakeholder in the supply chain does their bit.
