China COSCO Moving to Offshore Winds
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Friday, May 27, 2016
China COSCO Shipping, which uses bulk carriers and container vessels to transport goods, has seen its cargo business decline amid China's slowdown and has decided to get into the offshore wind power generation business, reports Nikkei.
Recently, the Belgian dredging, environmental and marine engineering group DEME DEME and China COSCO have formed a joint venture to develop offshore wind energy in China.
As the largest shipping company in the world, China COSCO Shipping wishes to enter this new market segment and has found a partner in DEME's subsidiary GeoSea, with its extensive experience in developing, building and maintaining offshore wind farms.
China is looking to the wind as an alternative to coal and oil and plans to boost installed capacity from the current 1 gigawatt to 30Gw by 2020; the Chinese shipping company sees this as an opportunity to expand into new businesses.
Alain Bernard, Director and CEO of DEME said: "The joint venture with China COSCO Shipping is a win-win for both parties and will contribute to realising the ambitious Chinese climate objectives”.
For the year through December 2015, sales at China COSCO Holdings fell 14.2% to 57.4 billion yuan and net profit tumbled 21.8% to 283 million yuan. Blame is being placed mainly on the bulk carrier's deteriorating earnings.