Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - industry

The new Triple-E class container ships are set to debut with Maersk livery. Maersk’s purpose in acquiring these behemoths is to take advantage of thier enormous capacity, which will enable Maersk to carry the greatest number of containers in the most energy efficient way, with the smallest CO2 footprint. Maersk thinks the time is ripe to order these new vessels as the annual market growth for Asia to Europe (westbound) trade is forecast to be in the 5-8% range during 2011-2015. The Triple-E’s design expanded the ship’s inside cavity, attaining a 16% capacity increase in comparison to the Maersk Emma (equivalent to 2,500 containers), despite relatively little change in length and width. The Triple-E is designed to transport more cargo without adding engine power.

With the continuous increase of subsea equipment and services companies setting up in Rio de Janeiro, including local companies, The State Government, through its State Office for Local Development (Secretaria Estadual de Desenvolvimento Econômico), has decided to create a subsea center in order to stimulate the sector and bring investments to subsea technology suppliers eyeing the Petrobras orders. Today there are around 35 subsea companies located in Rio (8 offering equipment and 27 offering services). These companies have a workforce of almost 1,200 employees, and the idea behind the subsea center is to attract suppliers and investors for these companies.

Brazilian shipyards are trying to become internationally competitive in terms of product quality, pricing and keeping to deadlines. There are presently around 280 units in construction in Brazil, including PSVs, tankers and rigs, with a workforce of around 56 thousand and growing. The shipyards are full to capacity and even though there are over twenty new yards being built, there is still a demand for more. One of the main problems faced by these new yards is to maintain a high quality standard in order to compete with experienced foreign yards. This is no easy feat. However many of these new yards being built have some form of partnership with international shipyards, looking to enter the Brazilian market.