This niche market is today a hotbed of competition, with several firms promoting their full bouquet of services at the Sri Lanka Ports, Trade & Logistics conference in Colombo on Thursday.
GAC, which is a joint venture with the MacLarens group, has been the pioneer in Sri Lanka for ship’s supply services off Galle. “We handle ship’s supply services for upwards of 250 vessels per month at Galle, while we handle 50 vessels a month in Colombo,” said GAC’s managing director Chandima Hulangamuwa. “We have our boats stationed in Colombo, Galle, and more recently, in Trincomalee and Hambantota.”
GAC also handles project cargo, project logistics, and over the last couple of years, Indian railway projects. It represents the Patil Group, India’s largest manufacturers of concrete railway sleepers, that supplies 90% of sleepers to the Indian Railways.
“The quantum of ship’s supply services has increased in recent times due to the sea marshals’ activity of embarking and disembarking,” says Hulangamuwa. “Several sea marshal companies operating out of the UK, Europe and Israel use our services.”
With a lot of construction activity taking place in Sri Lanka, GAC Shipping has won the contract for handling the ship agency and logistics operations for the firm constructing the highway from Colombo city to Bandaranaike airport.
The highway, expected to be opened from August this year, will reduce travel time between the airport and the city centre from anything between 45 minutes and an hour, to a mere 20 minutes.
Jousting with GAC for the top position in the ship’s supply services stakes is Wilhelmsen Meridian Navigation (WMN), part of the Wilhelmsen Ship Management group.
“We currently handle an average of 200 ships per month – mostly general cargo vessels and tankers,” said WMN’s managing director Majid Awn. “We have a large security operation in Galle, with a full-fledged office, performing crew changes, ship’s stores replenishment, medical assistance, spares and security personnel embarking and disembarking.
“We have seamless, time-sensitive operations, and do not delay a vessel for even half an hour. Before the vessel comes in, everything is checked out and planned – all the required permissions and coordination with the Navy.”
The company handles an average of 400 crew members every month. Some are retained in Colombo and then moved, some are taken from Colombo airport directly to Galle or Hambantota, as required. This forms the bulk of operations for WMN, which was launched in Colombo in 1989, and became a joint venture in 1995.
Others in the field of ship’s supply services and bunkering include Prudential Shipping Lines, which, over the 15 years of its existence, has expanded from being the representative in Sri Lanka for a ro-ro operator and a container feeder line to being the service agency to project cargo vessels, tankers, passenger vessels and naval vessels, where specialised and personalised services were needed.
It also diversified into inland haulage, customs clearing and warehouse management, and end-to-end logistics services for a few exclusive clients through a sister company, Premium Trading and Logistics, established in 2004.
“Our focus over the last two years has been to develop a specialised 24/7 unit to provide logistics services to maritime security teams who use Galle as a base/hub for embarkation/disembarkation of security teams, as well as discharge and storage of weapons,” said Prudential group managing director Rohitha Mendis.
For the foreseeable future, Prudential hopes to consolidate and expand agency and logistics services by taking advantage of new opportunities. It also plans to operate its own launch service at Galle for offshore ship supply services.
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