EuropeMaritime CEO

Polish Register: Offshore move

Gdansk: The Polish Register of Shipping is making inroads into the offshore market. The class society has traditionally focused on dry bulk tonnage but under its current president Dariusz Rudzinski there has been a concerted effort to diversify. To this end a Dubai office was opened a couple of years ago with a specific offshore focus. Offshore customers both in the Gulf and the Baltic are growing, Rudzinski tells Maritime CEO.

The IACS member now has 250 staff and 10 overseas offices. Up next is likely to be new ones in Turkey and either Singapore or Malaysia in Southeast Asia.

The classed fleet now stands at 2.2m gt and Rudzinski is looking to grow at 8-10% annually.

While consolidation is sweeping through many sectors in shipping including classification, Rudzinski is not keen to take his state run company down that path.

“For us, consolidation is not a way to go,” he says, adding: “We are developing our own skills and we believe there is a place for smaller societies to do business.”

On the state of Polish shipyards, Rudzinski says ship repair is faring “quite well”, while Polish shipbuilders continue to exploit niche markets such as double ended ferries for Norwegian fjords, some offshore projects including jackups with heavylift capacity. “There are quite a lot of sophisticated ships being made in Poland,” Rudzinski concludes. [10/09/14]

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