Freight Forwarding

I have run forwarding companies since 1989 — World Shipping & Air until 1995, then Korea Freight Services from 2005 as an international freight forwarder and NVOCC by sea and air. The specialist work has always been project cargo: out-of-gauge and breakbulk pieces, heavy lift, and cargo whose delivery date is fixed by a yard’s build schedule rather than by a sailing.

From 2013 to 2022 that work ran through Pentagon Freight Services Korea, the joint venture I established with Pentagon Freight Services PLC of the United Kingdom and served as representative director. The cargo was heavy maintenance components for drilling rigs, LNG carriers and oil tankers under construction or delivery at Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries and DSME, together with customs clearance, transport and storage of the equipment those newbuildings required.

The drillship West Aquila at DSME is the clearest example: parts consolidated and moved against a build programme over several years, from packaged components in February 2017 through to drill pipe on the quay in March 2019.

Where the piece will not fit a liner service, the answer is a charter — a Beluga multipurpose vessel in October 2006, a SAL heavy-lift vessel in June 2019. Chartering both cargo freighters and vessels has been part of the practice since the KOICA years.