United Heavy Lift (UHL) is opening a new office in Houston which will be managed by Rene Pedersen, who joins the company from Intermarine. The move follows shortly after SAL Heavy Lift acquired a majority stake in the Americas specialist.

UHL had appointed Intermarine as its exclusive commercial agent in North America in April this year, with Rene Pedersen leading the operation from Houston as Intermarine’s director of chartering. This month’s acquisition of Intermarine by SAL Heavy Lift, however, has resulted in the ending of that arrangement per 31 October, 2020.

In response, UHL is now opening its own office in Houston. Rene Pedersen will join the German carrier to help the brand further expand its presence in the region. Per December 1st, Pedersen will be joined by Eileen Wang who also joins the company from Intermarine and will take up the role of Business Development Executive.

“Houston has always been an important shipping hub and is considered the energy capital of the world. We want to be present in this market and serve the world’s largest EPC contractors, oil & gas companies, and project forwarders. With Rene Pedersen and Eileen Wang, we recruited top professionals to help us establish UHL in the United States”, comments CCO Dominik Stehle.

Intermarine acquisition

At the beginning of this month, SAL Heavy Lift announced it has acquired a majority stake in Intermarine. Former BBC Chartering CEO Svend Andersen has returned from his retirement to lead the company.

With the acquisition, SAL wants to expand its position in the Americas by offering a wider range of shipping services to both existing and new customers. With Intermarine’s expertise, the German carrier can offer its customers more capacity and frequent calls in and out of South America as well as into offsite river deltas, where SAL otherwise  would have had limited access. At the same time, Intermarine gets access to SAL’s super heavy lift capable vessels with lift capacities of up to 2,000 tonnes.