Growth engine

Growth engine       While most of Maersk Line Ltd.'s revenue comes from ship operations, the company thinks its Maritime Technical Services unit could be an engine for growth in the future.
      'We created it in 2004, and essentially the thought behind the business is that as a ship owner and ship operator we possess a skill set that may be of use to other people, particularly in the government market,' said Bob Bowers, senior director of maritime technical services. This includes not only the Navy and Coast Guard, but also organizations like the Army and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration that have sizeable fleets.
      Historically, the government has had a different model regarding maritime assets than commercial operators, he said, focused strongly on readiness, with much of the work done in-house.
      But in the past decade, there has also been growing interest in controlling costs and using what Bowers said are 'commercial best practices,' using commercial style specifications and classification. As an example of this kind of thinking, he points to the 14 Lewis & Clark, T-AKE supply ships being built for the Navy by the NASSCO. The vessels are built to commercial specifications and are classed by the American Bureau of Shipping.
      Initially he expects to use more commercial-style acquisition strategies, oriented toward vessels involved in sealift. But eventually, he said, it may involve combatant ships.
      In 2007, Maersk Line Ltd., with naval architects Gibbs & Cox and Derekcktor Shipyards in Bridgeport, Conn., attempted to win the contract for the Joint High Speed Vessel using a modified design by the Swedish company STENA. Eventually the contract for these shallow-draft ships was awarded to Austal in Mobile.
      Maersk Line Ltd. is working on a proposal to build what is called the Afloat Forward Storage Base (AFSB), a ship that would be used as a connector to move cargo such as military vehicles arriving on ships, to small vessels that would ferry them ashore.

Maersk Line Ltd. Is proposing to build an Afloat Forward Storage Base, a ship that would be used as a connector to move cargo such as military vehicles.

      The AFSB would also have a flight deck and hanger for helicopters or vertical landing aircraft like the Osprey, and would have large storage areas for supplies and fuel.
      Maersk is proposing that the AFSB could be built from converted S-class containerships ' big post-Panamax containerships built in Denmark in the late 1990s, capable of carrying about 6,600 TEUs.
      Bowers said the hull is a proven design and the government has in the past taken hulls from Maersk commercial ships and converted them into Military Prepositioning Ships.
      Conversion of the ships would 'occur in a U.S. shipyard and all of that economic value would be to the benefit of the yard, the steel producers, the equipment producers that are associated with that effort here in the U.S.,' Bowers explained.
      Maersk Line Ltd. and other participating companies bring an 'infrastructure in the U.S. and around the world, with facilities, with containers, with chassis, with systems and technology and visibility tools ' these are capabilities that the U.S. military does not have even with their organic assets,' said William Kenwell, senior vice president and chief commercial officer for Maersk Line Ltd.
      'We have a symbiotic relationship with the military, and provide tremendous value,' Kenwell said, contending that if the military had to replicate all the assets participants in the Maritime Security Program provides, it would cost $13 billion to replicate.