Maersk-Rickmers venture seeking U.S. flag business By Peter A. Buxbaum, AJOT Take one United States flag carrier interested in deepening its involvement in the heavy lift and project market. Take another carrier, this one experienced in project cargo and interested in carrying U.S.-flag cargo. Those are the ingredients of a recently announced partnership between Maersk Line, Limited and Rickmers-Linie (America), Inc., dubbed Maersk-Rickmers U.S. Flag Project Carrier. The partnership will be providing breakbulk and project cargo shipping using two newly-built multi-purpose, 19,000 deadweight ton, 480 metric ton lift ships to be operated under the U.S. flag. Those ships, the Maersk Illinois and the Maersk Texas, are currently en route from a shipyard in China to the U.S. by way of South Africa and South America. The plan is to have the ships, currently flying the flag of the the Marshall Islands, re-flagged at a Gulf of Mexico port before embarking on their U.S. flag maiden voyages. “We have seen increased volumes of project and heavy lift cargo financed by the U.S. Export Import Bank which operate under U.S. cargo preferences,” said Dave Harriss, director of Ship Management and Chartering at Maersk Line, Limited. “We saw that growing market as an opportunity and need for some additional multipurpose ships in our fleet. Our two new ships are twice the size of project vessels currently operating under the U.S. flag.” A series of cargo preference laws requires shippers to use U.S.-flag vessels to transport “government-impelled” cargo—including 100 percent of Export Import Bank-supported ocean cargoes. (See box.) Maersk Line Limited is the U.S. flag operation within the Maersk Group, the Copenhagen-based global carrier, operating 24 container ships, four ro/ro vessels, four tankers, and now, the two multipurpose heavy lift ships in partnership with Rickmers. MLL also operates government ships on behalf of the Military Sealift command. Rickmers-Linie (America) is the Houston-based subsidiary of the Hamburg-based global breakbulk carrier. Rickmers-Linie provides global liner services for the transportation of project and heavy cargoes such as power generation machinery, wind power equipment, railway locomotives, and yachts. The Maersk-Rickmers venture will not be operating as a liner service, at least for now. “We view this partnership as an opportunity to offer more solutions to our customers,” said Jerry Nagel, chairman of Rickmers-Linie (America). “We are not able to accommodate some business because all of our ships are foreign flag. We can bring our knowhow and experience with project and heavy cargoes and Maersk brings U.S. flag ships to meet customer requirements. It combines Rickmers’ philosophy with a market that Maersk wants to get more involved in.” Maersk Line is not entirely new to project cargo. “We have always been involved in this marketplace,” said Harriss. “We are recapitalizing our fleet we decided to take a different approach. We operated a number of different multipurpose vessels over the years and just recycled the last one. The Maersk Constellation served for 25 years.” In the past, Maersk’s multipurpose vessels concentrated on carrying food aid and military cargo. The emphasis going forward will be on project cargoes, said Harriss. Why the partnership with Rickmers? “In any business you want to partner with strength,” said Harriss. “Rickmers is a leader in the project cargo business worldwide and they have a systematic approach to the business that resonates with us. We have also been doing business together for some time and often move cargo back and forth between us as appropriate. Now the arrangement has been formalized.” The Maersk Illinois and the Maersk Texas now making their way to the U.S. gulf have “decent loads on them,” said Nagel. “They are headed to South America where we have cargo booked for the U.S. We are pleased with the performance of the two ships so far.” “This is a repositioning voyage but we wanted to make it a profitable v