Wilhelmsen Ships Service Announces First LRE Sales in New Zealand

Wilhelmsen Ships Service (WSS) New Zealand is pleased to announce the signing of its’ first Liferaft Exchange Programme (LRE) contract with Neptune Pacific Line.

Nigel Smith, General Manager WSS New Zealand and Pacific Islands said: “Neptune Pacific Line has been one of our key marine products clients for a number of years.”

“When we introduced them to the LRE concept they were extremely interested to see how it could work for their business. Despite initially looking to replace just one of the older liferafts onboard, when we explained the benefits of signing up for a complete set of five rental liferafts, they realised the potential cost savings and efficiencies and changed out the entire vessel.”

WSS New Zealand’s first assignment for Neptune Pacific was an exchange in Shanghai, where the crew were working to a very tight schedule with little more than 24 hours to deliver the complete set of five liferafts before the vessel sailed for Australia.

According to Mr Smith, the smooth exchange was carried out as a result of an effective working partnership between WSS New Zealand and other regional Wilhelmsen Ships Services offices in Singapore and Shanghai.

He said; “The New Zealand market has been a mature market for some years now with very little innovation. However , the introduction of the WSS LRE programme has seen some dramatic changes. Our clients are now aware of a viable and extremely cost effective alternative to the traditional approach of owning liferafts. The interest this has generated in NZ and the Pacific Islands has been extremely positive and we expect to see more contracts in the coming months as our clients see the potential cost and time savings our LRE systems can achieve for them.”

Wilhelmsen Ships Service’ LRE solution was developed as a result of consultation with WSS customers and facilitates the exchange of service-due liferafts for operational ones, enabling the vessel owner to take better control of costs and thus reducing the occurrence of unreliable service dates and weak links in the supply chain.

Neptune Pacific has a fleet of three vessels with a fourth under their technical management.

Wilhelmsen Ships Service supplies regulatory products and services as well as Unitor marine products and chemicals, Nalfleet marine chemicals, global maritime logistics and ships agency services.

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Source: Wilhelmsen, June 29, 2011.