Eitzen Bulk is “geared for the future” according to its company presentation, and that is exactly the perception we are left with after listening to Niels Jørgen Laustsen, the Managing Director of Eitzen Bulk, and his colleague Per Lange, a Director of Eitzen Bulk. Very dynamic, very professional and very business-oriented.
We are at the Eitzen Commercial headquarters in Gentofte, just on the outskirts of Copenhagen at the building erected by Eitzen in 1998. The company’s group headquarters is in Oslo, so this is an example of a very successful Norwegian–Danish operation. The company was founded in Oslo in 1883 by Captain Camillo Eitzen and the chief executive officer today is Axel Camillo Eitzen, the fourth generation of Eitzens to be involved in the company.
The Eitzen Group is comprised of six companies: Eitzen Bulk, which operates 50-60 bulk carriers, Eitzen Chemical, which operates 46 chemical carriers including newbuildings, Eitzen Gas, which operates 26 LPG/E carriers including newbuildings, Eitzen Tank, which operates 10 product tankers through participation in limited partnerships, OBO, which owns three ships and, finally, TESMA, a ship-management company which has the full technical management of 95 vessels and employs some 2,500 seafarers working on some 200 vessels.
Eitzen Bulk’s fleet consists of two Handy, 51 Handymax and one Panamax ships, bringing its total dwt capacity to some 2,6 mill. tonnes. “We transport considerable amounts of cargoes world wide, main areas being Indonesia and India, using several self loading/unloading vessels by way of using Eitzen owned grabs on geared vessels. We must be present, where our customers are, and we thus have offices in New York, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Melbourne, Hong Kong and Beijing,” says Laustsen. “ Our latest office - Beijing – already generates a lot of business for us, and it’s important to us to be customer focused. We used to have our largest volumes in the Atlantic, but over the last couple of years the Pacific and Indian Oceans have accounted for the majority of our business, with Indonesia and India as our most important markets.” Per Lange adds: “We also trade on the east coast of South America, moving logs, the socalled eucalyptus, used in the pulp industry. The advantage of that tree is that it will grow 20 metres high in a matter of a few years.
“We have some specialised vessels as well, and the SIBULK INNOVATION and her sister ship, the SIBULK DEDICATION, are both equipped with collapsible stanchions and are the largest fully lumber/logs fitted bulk carriers in the world,” adds Lange. In 2005, the Eitzen bulk carrier fleet carried 18,6 mill metric tons of cargo, consisting a.o. of coal/coke, fertilisers, forestry products, alumina, clinker, salt, steel products, iron ore, agricultural products, petcoke.
Eitzen’s global shipping operations are visualised using an IT system called SoftMar, which is the company’s operations system and contains all the vessels in operation’s important sailing data. “This enables us to constantly monitor our performance and exposure in real time which is important to us,” says Laustsen. “Our cargoes, chartering, operations, invoicing, budgets and status are also shown here – all very nicely tied together. The database at present contains 2,500 ships and same is constantly expanded, which facilitates our contract and tonnage management.”
Date: 12 February 2008