National Maritime Engineering Association Establishes Collaboration with NKUST

(Left to right) Guo-Zheng Zeng, Director of the Maritime Engineering Association of the R.O.C.｜Ching-Yu Yang, President of NKUST
(Photo by: EnergyOMNI)

The "National Maritime Engineering Association"（中華民國海事工程聯合促進會） has signed a MOU today (21) with the National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST). The association is comprised of 19 members including domestic maritime engineering companies, ship owners, and vessel operators. The signing ceremony was attended by Guo-Zheng Zeng, Director of the National Maritime Engineering Association (and also the Chairman of HTOE and former General Manager of CSBC), and Ching-Yu Yang, President of NKUST.

The member companies of the Association operate 71 vessels in Taiwan, including maritime survey, engineering support, installation and transport vessels.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in demand for various types of vessels, such as heavy lifting vessels, engineering support vessels, heavy transport vessels, large platform ships, tugboats, survey ships, and more. These vessels are required for offshore wind farm projects, which are provided by member companies like Boskalis, CSBC, HwaChi Offshore Construction Company, DACC, Dragon Survey, and others. These companies not only serve offshore wind farms like Formosa 2, Changfang & Xidao, Yunneng, Zhong Neng, etc. but also offer services related to underwater cable and pipeline inspections, submarine cable route surveys, underwater cultural heritage surveys, and rescue operations for stranded or sunken vessels.

Since its establishment in 2020, the Association has been dedicated to assisting the government in developing marine and maritime-related policies and supporting and promoting the development of the domestic marine and maritime engineering industry. This collaboration with NKUST leverages the academic expertise and human resources in the marine field and robust interdisciplinary resources to support more research collaborations in marine-related fields.

Yang has highlighted that the National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) is responsible for training 70% of the nation's seafarers. The university has made significant progress in academic research and technical training in various areas related to maritime engineering, such as offshore wind, marine environment, maritime conventions, and more. The main objective of this partnership is to strengthen the integration of academic capabilities with industry. resources.