Page 58: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 2013)

INTERVIEW HEAVY LIFTING ALATAS Americas is a global company with strong roots in maritime and fast growing branches in the offshore sector. MR visited Robin Thomas, VP, for his take on emerging trends in both sectors. ALATAS is a global company with roots in the maritime sector, but there has been a decided move toward off-shore oil and gas business. Why? Historically, our business has been predominantly fueled by the mari-time industry, over the last Þ ve years we have increased our customer base in the offshore market. Nowadays in the U.S. our customer base is more than 80% offshore customers, mainly consist-ing of drilling contractors and offshore support companies, globally offshore custom accounts for approximately 50% of our business. In the last few years there have been numerous legislation changes in the offshore industry with re- gards to crane design and manufacturing standards as well as crane maintenance requirements, which has resulted in a greater need for expert crane service.How do maritime and offshore clients differ? Offshore cranes are, gener- ally, signiÞ cantly more complex than shipboard cranes. Offshore operation requires dynamic lifting requirements in severe sea and weather conditions. Fur- thermore, offshore cranes are operated in a considerably more remote environ-ment, therefore immediate assistance or alternative crane support is not available. As a result of this isolation and lack of contingency, cranes must be maintained to a much higher standard and with sub-stantially more spare parts available in case of breakdown and for preventive maintenance. A fundamental difference though, I would suggest, is economical; in most cases a drilling rig reliant on its cranes loses considerably more per day than a merchant vessel if it?s crane is down, therefore offshore crane owners are willing to invest more in preventa-tive maintenance than your average ship manager. What is your outlook for the off- shore O&G business in the coming 24 months? What indicators do you monitor? I have a very positive outlook for the coming years. Despite our global service network, we are still relatively small, therefore our growth potential is very good, particularly in the North, Central and South American markets. The more cranes sold the more cranes we can expect to service once the warranty period is breached. Every press release I see for a multi-crane contract is sim-ply a future opportunity. Recently many smaller crane manufacturers have boast-ed multimillion dollar crane sales (many for the Brazilian market), so likely our service support network will be utilized more and more as the OEM concentrates on sales and commissioning, rather than long term upkeep. ALATAS is a small company working on equipment from major manufac- turers. Why would a company choose to have ALATAS service its cranes rather than the OEM? First and foremost, service. At ALATAS we concentrate all our efforts on keeping existing cranes in operation; this is our core business, and as such, we achieve a higher standard. We are now in a market saturated with complicated electric over hydraulic crane technolo-gies, and the entire industry experiences a lack of suitably qualiÞ ed and compe- tent technicians. Our strategically placed global service networks offer Þ eld ser- vice as well as hydraulic component re-pair, and we have recently launched our crane design company in Austria. All of this combined with our core-service ori-entated philosophy gives us a better ca-pacity for supporting our customers. Is there any work that ALATAS can- not do on these large cranes? We aim to employ OEM factory trained technicians wherever possible, as this enhances our group knowledge base and give us expertise on all manner of crane systems. We are capable of work- ing on any mechanical, hydraulic and electric system. Our only restriction is for reprogramming of software produced by the OEM for control systems. Such systems are safety relevant and ?locked? giving only the OEM can access.How has ALATAS invested to keep it- self relevant to the needs of your mar- time and offshore clients? To run a successful business in any industry you must constantly adapt, and we have developed our company to offer increasingly complete crane so-lutions. In the last three years we have established full hydraulic workshops in the U.S., Singapore and Hong Kong for pump, motor and gearbox repairs and testing. In the U.S. we have established an Offshore Hose Management Service, providing with full labor and DNV Con- tainerized equipment for producing, testing and installing hydraulic hose off- shore. We have set up training facilities in several locations worldwide, as well as establishing a Crane Design ofÞ ce in Austria, enabling us to offer comprehen- sive Class certiÞ ed crane upgrades. Our next priority will be establishing a ser- vice center in Brazil, as this huge market has an urgent need for quali Þ ed crane service support, and we have an existing customer base with a conÞ rmed interest. Keeping Maritime & Offshore Cranes Ship Shape ?In most cases a drilling rig reliant on its cranes loses considerably more per day than a merchant ves- sel if it?s crane is down , therefore offshore crane owners are willing to invest more in preventative maintenance than your average ship manager.? Robin Thomas, VP, ALATAS Americas 58 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News ? APRIL 2013 MR #4 (58-65).indd 58MR #4 (58-65).indd 584/4/2013 3:40:51 PM4/4/2013 3:40:51 PM