To better support the large Greek fleet, Kongsberg Maritime now has opened office in the port of Piraeus.
World’s largest fleet
With over 4.000 vessels, Greek ship owners control the world’s largest merchant fleet, involved internationally in the cargo and passenger trade. There are around 700 shipping companies in the Athens and Piraeus area, so it was important for KONGSBERG to establish presence in Greece to better support its clients.
Terje Dyhre (33) is General Manager for the new office. He started at Kongsberg Maritimes office at Bekkajordet in Horten, Norway in 2004 as Field Engineer. He became Operatinal Coordinator for the same department December 2008, and then team leader for section Manager Field Service Customer Support Department. He moved to Greece July this year.
“I see this as a great challenge, and it is motivating to participate in building the business from scratch”, he says.
Liquefied natural gas
Kongsberg Maritime Hellas has 14 staff, and combines customer support and sales from the same location in the port of Piraeus. It will perform service in the local area and in southern Europe. The large Greek ferry fleet sails with a lot of Kongsberg Maritime systems on-board, especially MBB installations, whilst Blue star ferries will soon arrive with the new K-Chief 600 system.
However, KM Hellas will handle service on a wide range of merchant products, such as the whole Datachief range, K-Chief 500, Autochief 3, 4 and 7, MBB, and cargo and navigation systems.
Traditionally Greek ship owners have invested in tankers, bulk carriers and container vessels. Recently there has been activity in the LNG (liquefied natural gas) and Shuttle Tanker markets. This gives an opportunity to the staff in Hellas to broaden their skills and knowledge in order to support systems such as Dynamic Positioning, CTS and K-Chief 700.
Piraeus port is one of the largest in the Mediterranean sea and a top ten container port in Europe. More than 24,000 vessels will visit Piraeus each year.
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Source: Kongsberg, September 23, 2011.