this week we speak with
Thomas Parlow, Managing Director, TP Shipping, Norway
THE "WHO-WHERE-WHAT" CHALLENGE
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Thomas was born into shipping. He was part of the initial set up of TP Shipping Norway since its foundation in 1986 and for training purposes worked in Copenhagen, London, Paris and Houston. He has been the Managing Director of TP Shipping since 2009, after his father Tom passed away. He has 35 years of experience as a ship broker, forwarder, charterer, commercial HLV ship manager, time charter operator, liner service operator and ship agent. |
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Tell us about TP Shipping. Who owns the company? |
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TP shipping is privately owned with the majority of shares controlled by me. |
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Where are your offices located? |
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Our physical address is in the southern part of Norway, while our main client base is mainly outside of Norway, ranging from Asia to South Africa, North and South America to the rest of Europe. Our staff have living and working experience from Australia, South America, USA and Northern Europe. We have the local in-house knowledge that our clients need. |
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What is TP Shipping specialty and service range? |
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Our main focus is the energy and defense markets. We specialize on the ocean side of the logistics, mainly chartering of specialized tonnage, HLVs semi-subs, module carriers and barges. However we also handle air charters and have performed projects where we chartered up to 20 747’s and some 100 Il76s. |
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Tell us about projects you have handled recently. |
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We have ongoing projects for several factories. Among them we handle most of the flexible pipe production for Baker Hughes for world wide deliveries. We also have several projects for the fish farm industries in Chile, Canada, US and Spain among others. |
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Which are the main industries served in Norway? |
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Norway is Energy: oil and gas, hydro and wind power. Fish farming, shipping and engineering services. You will find Norwegian companies working with projects within these sectors anywhere in the world. We are a small but very international orientated country. In many projects controlled by Norwegians the cargoes never touch Norwegian soil. |
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Which are the main ports used for serving breakbulk project cargo in Norway? |
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Due to the fact that the hinterland in Norway consists mainly of mountains, tunnels and bridges put a limit to possibilities for land transportation. Every little village and city on the coast of Norway, which is about 29000 km long excluding our island, has it's own ports. Any project will use whichever port / quay is the closest available to the site. |
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What made you join the industry? |
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I was born into the industry. Apart from joining my father on ships as a small kid, I had my first introduction to being a ship agent during a summer job while in junior high school, which sealed my future. |
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What do you like the most about your business? |
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The need to have local knowledge in most places in the world and gaining friends all over of the globe. |
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Who should be approached in TP Shipping for inquiries? |
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You can contact Rodrigo Carrera, Svein Åge Thorsen and Thomas Parlow. |
