b'THE UNCONTAINEDAALS SCHOELLERTALKS ABOUT THE GLOBAL BUSINESS AND NEW SHIPSFelix Schoeller, Commercial Director, AAL Shipping (AAL)discusses new ships and prospects for the project sector.By George Lauriat, AJOTAJOT: In January, AAL completed a project move of industrial tower components for a refinery project from South Korea to the U.S West Coast, Port of Everett, Washington. The complicated move begs a number of related questions.In general, with petroleum prices on the rise, do you think the oil & gas sector will be a solid contributor to the projects segment of the heavy lift/project business in the near turn. And if so, what regions do you see growth? North America? Latin America, Middle East? Australia? Asia? Russia?Schoeller: The oil and gas project sector has been very quiet over the past years. Many projects have been delayed or cancelled altogether. This has been due to lower oil prices but also the global push for renewable energy, in turn driven by fiscal governmental support to encourage local industries to help them meet Felix Schoeller,national emissions targets. Now with the rise in oil and gas prices many projects Commercial Director, are back on the map. We expect to see project growth mainly in the Middle East AAL Shipping and North America. We expect an additional upgrade round of facilities over the next 10-years, after which energy production will shift mostly to renewable energy such as wind, hydrogen etc. Natural gas has a longer lifespan.AJOT: How has the COVID-19 restrictions complicated the Project/Breakbulk sector business?Schoeller:For ship owners such as AAL there have been two major issues. Crew welfare on board of the vessels: Crew changes have been not possible for the greater part of 2020 and 2021 due to travel restrictions, tighter port regulations and delays of vessel schedules. This situation improved in the second half of 2021. AAL and our technical manager CSM have done well to not only support our crew throughout the pandemic but to keep our fleet and customer cargoes moving and with as minimal disruption as possible. The other main limiting factor has been the disruption of the supply chain on land. Due to covid, there have been labor shortages and general slowdown of 15'