The Art of Reinvention

By Felicity Landon

Christophe Grammare, managing director of AAL Shipping, unveils how the carrier’s cutting-edge Super B-Class vessels are setting the stage for a bold new chapter in breakbulk transport.

From Issue 3, 2025 of Breakbulk Magazine.

(7-minute read)

Sometimes the best lifeline in tricky times is a strategy of reinvention – backed, of course, by a steely determination to see things through. It’s an approach that has worked for AAL Shipping in the past; the multipurpose shipping operator has upended challenges to create and exploit opportunities across cargo types, client types and geographical locations.

In 2025, as Austral Asia Line Pte Ltd celebrates its 30th anniversary, its new fleet of eight Super B-Class 32,000 dwt heavy-lift vessels looks set to reinvent AAL’s operations once again, thanks to a unique retractable weather deck extension system and other innovative features.

After taking delivery of the fifth and sixth Super B-Class vessels in the first half of this year, AAL will receive the final two of the series in 2026. As they arrive, shipping is urgently seeking new fuels for decarbonization, while also coping with geopolitical upheavals and uncertainties.

The dual-fuel Super B-Class vessels are e-methanol ready, ticking the sustainability box. But they are being built at the CSSC Huangpu-Wenchong Shipyard in Guangzhou, China and President Trump has threatened massive port fees on Chinese-built vessels – more of which later.

The Super B-Class fleet marks a new phase for AAL Shipping, says managing director Christophe Grammare. He joined AAL 20 years ago and is keen to discuss the transformation he has witnessed – and driven – since then.

Like so many, he says he fell into shipping by accident. In 2000, having completed his engineering studies in France, he worked briefly for Airbus before moving to Durban to become container logistics manager for Delmas’s MIDAS Line, covering India, the Middle East and West Africa. After three years, he became one of the youngest line managers for Delmas, taking responsibility for the new DIORS service connecting India and East Africa via Mauritius, Seychelles and Reunion, operating two 15,000 dwt multipurpose vessels.

“When I joined Delmas, there was a massive age gap; all the managers were in their 50s and 60s and the middle generation just wasn’t there, so there was a big demand for young people and talent, and we were pushed forward quickly. That was attractive for me because if I had stayed at Airbus, it would have taken me 20 years to get into management,” he says.

In 2005, he was invited to join AAL as general manager, running the Asia-Australia East Coast services, based in Brisbane. He was appointed managing director of liner services in 2012, then moved to Shanghai as commercial director in 2016. In 2017, he relocated to Singapore, where he became managing director in 2022, before returning to Brisbane.

Milestone Deliveries

“Head office was in Brisbane when AAL was established – 30 years ago it was basically a container service between Brisbane, Darwin, Singapore and Indonesia which gradually expanded all the way to China and then split into two offices, for Australia and Southeast Asia,” Grammare says.

"When I joined, it was 50-50 containers. The service was driven a lot by northbound – exporting commodities from Australia and handling inbound steel and containers. Since then, we have seen massive changes at AAL – we are now carrying up to 80% project cargo into Australia and most of the time we ballast it because bulk doesn’t pay enough to hold it back.

“When I joined AAL, I didn’t have much of an idea of breakbulk to start with. I had to learn on the spot and as the company grew, so did our capability.”

A milestone was the delivery of 14 newbuildings between 2010 and 2012 – ten A-Class and four S-Class. “Our previous generation vessels were not geared for heavy-lift. The arrival of these vessels was a different ballpark altogether. Suddenly what we could do completely changed.

“That was what I call phase three of AAL. Until that time, we were still mainly focused on Australia but once we took delivery of these 14 newbuilds, we really had to expand.”

Initially the company was running two brands – the Australasia line and a service called Project Asia Service (PAS). As project cargo grew, the decision was made to rebrand everything under the AAL flag.

However, AAL was taking delivery of a lot of vessels in a very difficult market after the global financial crisis. “These were tough years as we were trying to expand. The Australian market really shrank. We started tramping – wherever there was a cargo, we would send a ship. But these ships were large and needed employment. We had to adapt, and we built the Europe-Asia trading line.”

A Game of Survival

People often forget that this was a long period of struggle for the whole shipping industry, says Grammare. “2010-2020 was a survival game, with minimum teams working crazy hours. We lost a lot of people in the industry. When Covid hit and rates went through the roof, it was a bit of a lifeline for carriers. After ten years of struggling, we all needed a cash injection to invest into newbuildings, start afresh, invest in HR, really get business underway.”

Was he ever tempted to leave the industry himself? “I love the industry. What I love about breakbulk and project cargo is that every piece of cargo you lift is going to be different from the others. It’s the diversity, and the new challenges daily. It’s crazy the number of decisions you make in a day which have real consequences in the real world. We have carried bridge sections which were bigger than our ship, cutting part of the vessel to fit them on. We have moved a giraffe for a zoo.”

The eight 32,000 dwt Super B-Class vessels represent the same degree of change as the 14 vessels of 2010-12. The crane capacity is similar but what the vessels can do is “quite beyond” those of the earlier generation, he says.

The configuration of three heavy-lift cranes along the port side provides for a maximum lifting capacity of 800 tonnes and the ability to spread project cargo across the ship, no longer mixing with steel or other breakbulk to fill the gaps. There is a fully open, uninterrupted deck and two large holds capable of loading much larger units. Having two holds where there were five on the A-Class, the absence of a center line bulkhead means the full width and length of each hold can be used.

Headline Innovation

But the headline innovation is the AAL ECO-DECK retractable weather deck. Based on twin deck pontoons extending out either side, the ECO-DECK increases the width of the deck from 25.5 meters to 34.8 meters. The combined area of the hatch cover deck and the ECO-DECK is more than 5,000 square meters, compared to 2,690 square meters on the A-Class vessels with a similar deadweight – an increase of about 85%.

The accommodation is built forward so there is no limitation to the cargo height that can be loaded. “Having the accommodation forward and the enormous open deck is a huge change. We can really load some interesting cargoes.”

Grammare compares the ECO-DECK to an aircraft carrier design with deck overhangs, and the concept came from AAL’s own engineering team. “Other yards are now copying the concept, but this was our design. It takes only a couple of hours’ preparation to extend the width of the deck.”

The expanse of deck means that AAL is competitive in new areas and the larger project market – offshore wind being a real standout, says Grammare. “Not so many vessels can transport a large quantity of offshore wind components. The towers are very heavy, very long, very voluminous.

“To be cost-effective, a ship needs to carry more than two or three sets. On the Super B-Class, we can carry six or seven sets. And that is for a vessel which is essentially the same dimensions as the previous generation.”

The designers kept the vessel length at the “sweet spot” of under 180 meters: “As soon as you do project cargo, you often go to berths that are not fully developed and length or draft can be an issue.”

The excitement of the Super B-Class vessels is clear. “As much as I was there when we designed the A-Class, I was a lot more junior then and didn’t have so much input,” he says. “These ships were designed in 2020 and then we had to wait for the money to come in to place the order. When the first Super B-Class vessel was delivered, it was fantastic.

“Essentially it was a proof of concept and it was really exciting to see the ship in real life. I still remember that feeling of “wow” when we first climbed on the vessel, actually sitting on the deck and seeing one huge open surface out in front of you.”

The rest of the fleet remains in operation and the Super B-Class delivery schedule gives time for each vessel to be absorbed into the fleet before the next one arrives. “Because we have started to market for the offshore wind cargoes which we didn’t before, the new vessels are not consuming the cargoes we would otherwise be carrying,” says Grammare.

E-Methanol Ready

The new vessels are e-methanol ready. “Realistically, for e-methanol to become financially viable, we still need to see a lot of technological innovation around carbon capture and there needs to be a lot more production,” says Grammare.

“If everything goes well, we think that for a tonne of e-methanol to be the same price as [traditional] fuel today will be something in the range of ten to 15 years. Paying marginally more is acceptable, but double or triple the price is not. At the moment it’s ten times – nowhere near comparable. But the big issue is that it isn’t being produced in a quantity that is sustainable.”

However, he points out, these ships are being built for the next 20 to 30 years and only minor modifications will be needed to burn e-methanol during a likely ten-year transition period.

As FuelEU regulations kick in, AAL is looking at biofuels, probably as a 20-30% mix with existing fuel. The Super B-Class vessels are not only designed to carry double the volume of cargo but also have optimized hull design and engine to deliver far less fuel consumption than previous generation vessels.

Grammare is not concerned about suggestions that the U.S. under President Trump is turning away from energy transition. “Ultimately, the transition has not been led by the U.S. but by Europe – and that hasn’t changed. FuelEU will push everyone to buy biofuels and there is huge investment in research for hydrogen and other technologies. Decarbonization is the right thing to do, and I don’t see that trajectory changing any time soon.

“ESG reporting requires companies to report what they are doing every year to improve their environmental impact. The EPCs designing major projects are very motivated that their cargoes are being carried on vessels that are as environmentally friendly as possible. Otherwise they can’t get finance.”

Port Charge Threat

Geopolitical upheavals have their impact and create uncertainty. One of these is Trump’s threat to charge a US$1m fee for every Chinese-built ship calling at an American port. If implemented, this could turn the market “upside down,” warns Grammare.

“We believe from our own research that 60-70% of MPVs are being built in China and up to 85% of the orderbook is there. Yards in Korea and Japan are not interested in building complicated MPVs, preferring to focus on standard container and bulk vessels. So even if you want to, it’s almost impossible to buy an MPV at an economic price except in China.

“A lot of what we carry to the U.S. goes to support its energy demands. A lot of components are needed for power generation and come from overseas. While this suggested charge would possibly add $300 per teu for the container fleet, for us, with one shipment from A to B for one project, it could add $1m to the freight costs. This would eventually impact the U.S. power grid.”

Meanwhile, AAL ships continue to avoid the Red Sea due to the Houthi attacks on shipping. Tariffs and protectionism, he says, are “nothing new.”

“We have always prided ourselves on being resilient, flexible and adaptive to market changes,” says Grammare. “That’s how we got through the global financial crisis with 14 new ships on our hands, moving from a regional to global carrier while everyone else was going backwards. “We have navigated Covid, the change of fuel and a steep expansion. We now operate 30 vessels – when I started, it was five. For us, it is still full steam ahead – expanding and looking at new sectors where we haven’t necessarily been active before.”

AAL will be sponsoring the panel session “Future-Proofing Heavy-Lift and MPV Fleet Capacity” at Breabulk Europe 2025. Join industry leaders on Rotterdam Ahoy's main stage on Wednesday, 14 May, from 11:00–11:45 to discuss fleet renewal, evolving ship designs, and the impact of future fuels and market trends on newbuilding investment.

Photos:
Grammare speaks at Breakbulk Middle East 2025. Credit: Spaceplum.
AAL Limassol on its maiden voyage transporting barges and wind turbine blades. Credit: AAL