Top American Bureau of Shipping officials could hardly be more effusive in their praise of the Greek market and how important they deem it for their business.
“We’re a fan of Greek shipping, we believe in Greek shipping, we trust Greek shipping, we indeed admire Greek shipping,” senior vice president Vassilios Kroustallis said at a company event in Athens on 27 September.
This may sound like a piece of overwrought PR, but the US-based classification society has solid numbers to back up its claims.
Its Athens office staffing has increased by more than half over the past three years to 135 employees, making it the company’s fastest expanding dependency worldwide.
“London was once the biggest office in Europe — now it is Greece,” said Elias Kariambas, vice president in charge of regional business development in the country.
ABS is far from done expanding. At least 20 more Athens hirings are underway this year and next.
The reasons behind this Greek growth agenda are twofold.
First, the company found out — especially during the pandemic — that it needed more of a local presence to bridge the time difference between local clients and Houston headquarters on the other side of the Atlantic.
ABS’ main competitors are based in European time zones close to Greece, which made it easier for them to communicate instantly with their Hellenic partners.
The second reason is that Greeks play such a dominant role in European and global shipping that one can hardly afford not to be in direct, daily contact with them.
“It is very important to be here, to listen and have people here who can do things,” Kariambas added.
Homegrown expertise
The Athens expansion is one of quality as well as quantity.
ABS’ seaside offices in the district of Moschato are home to some unique resources in its globe-spanning network.
That includes an engineering team at the Global Ship Systems Center led by Chris Leontopoulos, an award-winning expert in shafting analysis.
“We don’t do theoretical research and development — it’s practical, we always make use of our clients’ feedback,” Leontopoulos told the event.
The Athens office also houses one of the company’s five sustainability centres worldwide.
“I am proud to say that the Greek sustainability centre is the largest by far, in terms of the number of people,” ABS director Pantelis Skinitis said.
The fruit of such engagement is showing in some groundbreaking Greek shipbuilding projects.
ABS has provided class notation for the first three of Maran Tankers’ four dual-fuel VLCCs. It is also involved in the Angelicoussis company’s project for dual-fuel suezmax newbuildings.
“We have authority in Greece and that gives you speed,” Kroustallis summed up.
Some of the new projects that the Greek staff are active in focus on ABS’ digital offerings.
The idea is to provide individual ship-tailored information to improve performance, as well as to help masters anticipate and prepare for potential port-state controls.
That includes an artificial intelligence tool providing immediate answers based on the latest version of GPT.
“What we’re trying to do is to digitalise available information to create solutions,” said Stamatis Fradelos, vice president in charge of regulatory affairs.
“That’s what we’re focusing on, and the president has given us a significant amount to invest in such new technologies.”
