With optimism about the global market for fenders it might be strange that one manufacturer points out that the market for large volume projects is growing in certain areas, but shrinking in others. This explains the move of numerous fender manufacturers to branch in to other areas, such as the rental of floating fenders or offering special solutions for existing structures and quays.
FenderTeam
One fender manufacturer diversifying its services is Germany-based FenderTeam AG which has had another very successful year in 2013 with a new record turnover and strong growth in all markets. Results at their daughter companies in the USA and especially in France developed extremely well. But there are still enough projects to go after. “Hence, fender manufacturers have to adopt and intensify their activities in growing markets as well as change their strategy in saturated markets,” said Jan Mursch, Board Member at FenderTeam AG. Since January 2013 the company is also a 100% owner of a steel fender panel fabrication and plastic extrusion facility in Germany allowing FenderTeam to serve their customers with high quality products made in Germany with the shortest delivery times. Some of the projects where FenderTeam has provided fender systems include a new container port in Aqaba, Jordan; King Abdullah Port in Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia; new port of Sotchi, Russia; Geoport in Novorossisk, Russia; Yamal LNG Terminal in Murmansk, Russia; ferry terminal in Dover and container terminal in Southampton, UK; Puerto de la Guaira, Venezuela; a new container terminal in Jorf Lasfar, Morocco; new port in Riga, Latvia and a new navy port in Chile.
“The outlook for 2014 is very positive and we expect a further increase of market share together with our long term partners Shibata Industrial Ltd [Japan] and Marine Fenders International [USA],” Mursch added.
IRM Offshore & Marine Engineers
IRM Offshore & Marine Engineers, based in Ahmedabad, has grown steadily and organically for the past fifty years – with celebrations this coming year for its anniversary. While one manufacturer claims that the fender market in most parts of Europe is shrinking, business for IRM is still good and in order to respond faster to their European customers it has opened its own subsidiary – IRM Europe in Velsen-Noord, the Netherlands. This subsidiary maintains a stock of all sizes of pneumatic fenders for sale or rent and operates as a technical and commercial liaison office for PIANC type approved solid fender products and offshore engineered products. Their engineered rubber products are used in many different applications and IRM provide total turnkey solutions to protect offshore and marine structures/assets as it continues to see an increase in demand. IRM believes that their growth is in line with the expansion in global maritime trade, and that ship traffic has increased considerably, posing new challenges to port designers and the operators. Furthermore the awareness of safety, acute demand to minimise the time duration for loading and unloading cargo in ports and terminals, reducing downtime period and increasing vessel sizes are all resulting in a larger demand for ‘proper’ fender systems. In addition, new developments of LNG terminals, gas terminals, oil terminals worldwide where safety is the corner stone for smooth functioning, the need for a good fender system is inevitable in today’s world. IRM has been supplying fender systems to some major projects including some cell fenders to the DP World operated Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal in Mumbai, India; cone fenders to Ultratech Cement Jetty, India; a dual cone fendering system to the port of Leixoes, Portugal; a cylindrical fendering system to Mauritius Port, Mauritius and a cell fendering system to Gangavaram Port, India. But it is not only new projects that IRM is serving. According to IRM even the replacement business is contributing a major volume of their fender business. Hence it has seen growth in their fender business day-by-day since the downturn in the worldwide economy a couple of years ago. The company has also identified an increasing demand for pneumatic fenders where clients need urgent delivery due to their specific operations like ship-to-ship (STS) transfer. This is the main reason they opened a subsidiary in the Netherlands where they keep a large stock of pneumatic fenders of various sizes conforming to ISO 17357.
Trelleborg Marine Systems
Trelleborg Marine Systems also reports some good news and says Richard Hepworth, President, Trelleborg Marine Systems: “We’re continuing to win significant projects, across both our rubber and foam fender portfolios. Our fender rental business for pneumatic and foam fenders is also performing well – proving that this service was required by the market to meet fast turnaround times and, in particular, temporary applications. We’ve supplied rental fenders for projects from offshore STS transfer, to floating hotels – so it really is varied.” In terms of contracts one of the most recent was the contract to supply over 100 Seaguard foam fenders to Brunei Shell’s Kuala Belait supply base wharf in Brunei. As part of an upgrade project for the wharf, 93 fenders were required to span six berthing spaces. The fenders will be installed with spacing of 1.5m, covering a length along the entire Kuala Belait Supply Base Wharf of 325m, and an additional 21 fenders as spares. Although rubber remains the traditional material of choice for fenders, foam fenders have significant advantages over rubber in many cases. For Kuala Belait, a fast turnaround was essential.
“Last year, we were also awarded contracts to supply fender systems to all three liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects on Queensland’s Curtis Island in Australia,” said Hepworth. Having already been awarded the contracts to supply docking and mooring equipment and monitoring software earlier in the year, Trelleborg Marine Systems were chosen to supply the Queensland Curtis LNG, Gladstone LNG and Australia Pacific LNG projects with state-of-the-art SCN Super Cone and ANP Arch Fender Systems. According to Hepworth the economic outlook is beginning to improve and the fender market in particular continues to grow so “we’re still seeing a strong pipeline of orders.” Hepworth also refers to the company’s latest Barometer Report suggesting that port owners and operators are more optimistic than they have been before in terms of investment for the year ahead – in fact, 93% expect to see an increase in CapEx in the next twelve months. The Report, which will be released within the next month or so, revealed that 20% of the port owners and operators surveyed had suffered from unscheduled downtime due to fender damage. “This is a huge amount to suffer due to damaged fenders and suggests that the market is, potentially, still not getting to grips with the need to specify quality over the whole product lifecycle, and instead, specifiers are making procurement decisions based on upfront costs,” said Hepworth. “We’ve done a lot of work over the past twelve months to establish and prove the performance differences between high quality and low cost fenders, and highlight the implications of making decisions based on purchase cost alone.” Understanding the rubber compound composition of fenders, and using this information to inform procurement decisions is key. “Unfortunately,” points out Hepworth ” our Barometer Report indicated that there is something of a knowledge gap. Of the consultants and contractors surveyed, 50% don’t know whether their suppliers apply bespoke Velocity Factor (VF) to products supplied, and 53% don’t know if they supply bespoke Temperature Factor (TF) depending on rubber compound composition, while 77% admit they don’t know the correct ratio of ingredients in a superior rubber compound, and 83% don’t know the ideal rubber to filler ratio for marine fenders.” Based on the above World Port Development will be looking at what measures can be put in place to regulate the quality of fenders i
n our next issue which will be distributed at the PIANC World Congress.