Rickmers-Linie Acquires Nordanas Project Business

Rickmers Linie Hamburg-based liner service specialist Rickmers-Linie said that it has taken over the activities of tramp and chartering specialist Nordana Project & Chartering as the two companies pursue improvements in liner and tramp trades. The business will continue under the name and brand “NPC” and become an independent division supplementing the Rickmers-Linie segment within the Rickmers Group effective 1 July 2016. Under the new arrangement, NPC will operate a multipurpose heavy lift fleet worldwide in the size range between 8,000 and 21,000 dwt with a lifting capacity of up to 500 tonnes. The core fleet will be made up of Nordana’s 12,000 dwt heavy lift vessels and will include Thai flag vessels, Rickmers-Linie said in a statement. NPC, which has offices in Copenhagen, Bangkok, Singapore and Houston, will be managed by Lars Steen Rasmussen (Copenhagen) and Torben Reinhard (Bangkok) and will be a separate entity within the Rickmers-Linie segment. The takeover of NPC through Rickmers-Linie comes a year after Nordana Project & Chartering nominated Rickmers (Japan) as their sole general agent in Japan paving way for NPC to considerably increase the number of calls at Japanese ports. In March this year, Nordana nominated Rickmers-Linie as its representative in China. “Working together with NPC in our ventures in Japan and China has shown that we fit together really well, both product, and service-wise, as well as with the team spirit and working climates within our companies. We reviewed and soon agreed that we should expand our cooperation, which eventually led to Rickmers-Linie taking over the NPC business,” Ulrich Ulrichs, CEO of Rickmers-Linie said.