In Toepfer’s latest MPP market update, they say rising freights versus pre-boom logistic budgets are not the only concerns Wind Power Manufacturers have to face.
“While the overall Wind Power-driven demand for MPP tonnage space is steadily rising, the fleet gets smaller and older. The size of the Wind Power components is rapidly increasing and only a small portion of ships can accommodate the new Wind power Blades with a length in excess of 115 m and Nacelles close to 600 mt unit weight.
The high rise of freight rates in the past months puts significant pressure on the sector. Many companies calculated their transport budgets for ongoing projects at the much lower rate levels of the past and now struggle to mitigate the losses.
In order to assess the general sentiment of the market, Toepfer Transport has published a poll on its LinkedIn-Page (https://www.linkedin.com/company/toepfertransport) asking “Is the current MPP-Fleet large enough and technically well fitted to cover the upcoming demand and cargo specs of the wind energy industry?”.
The Results show 89 per cent of the participants in the poll expect at least a limited lack of cargo space and capabilities whereas 63 pct even expect a substantial shortage of suitable ships and carrying capacity.
Wind Power plays an important role In the ongoing efforts to curb global CO2 emissions. During the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), 70 countries highlighted Wind Power in their national action plans with many spelling out high GW/MW capacity or percentage targets.
The low order book of the MPP market may turn out to be a bottleneck in relation to achieving the political goals and thus may harm the pace of the urgent transition to green energy, which has to rely on smoothly performing logistic supply chains. This situation was and still is foreseeable and only the future can tell, whether the stakeholders in Wind Power Logistics and especially the MPP shipping market will be able to cope with this challenging situation.
The latest development of the tonnage supply situation can be found in the upcoming issue of the Quarterly Toepfer Transport Multipurpose Shipping Report which will be published by mid of December.”
