Maritime Blog

We have not changed much how we have organized ourselves on the shipping industry's commercial side during the last 20 years. However, the race for data, standardization, and our belief in "what algorithms can do for us" will fundamentally change how we organize our commercial work and how we make decisions. But, remember it is not all about data, software and digitalisation, it's a lot about peoples knowledge, your business model, how you organise your teams and what kind of risks you are comfortable to take on. The algorithms need data and time to change this industry, so you still have time to adopt. So keep calm and start with a SWOT analysis and ask yourself some key questions 😊 This is what I told some students at The Norwegian School of Economics 😊

Emails are time-consuming and there is software much better suited to organize communication and distribute information than e-mails. Very often such software is referred to as platform software because the users can exchange data, communicate and collaborate more efficiently, and the information and data are stored to the project, building, vessel, voyage, etc, and it is easy for the organization to search for and find the relevant data, even though a team member has left the team or the organization. 

Restrictions at port and berth may set limitations to how much cargo your vessel may carry. But have you also taken into account that the specifications of the cargo may limit your intake as well? In this article we touch upon what we mean by "stowage" and describe some of the major dry bulk commodities.

Transporting goods entails navigating in shallow waters, lock, river bends and canals, with commodities requiring different design and equipment. Smaller size vessels are better fit to enter small ports or trade on inland waterways, canals and rivers. They are often equipped with cranes, making them less dependent on ports loading/unloading facilities. Larger vessels are used in transportation between large industrial regions and are often used in trades between ports that are far apart. In this article we introduce some of the variations you find in Maritime Optima.

LPG is Liquid petroleum gas and prepared by refining petroleum or "wet" natural gas, and is almost entirely derived from fossil fuel sources, being manufactured during the refining of petroleum (crude oil), or extracted from petroleum or natural gas streams as they emerge from the ground. LPG vessels are divided into fully pressurised ships, semi-refrigerated ships and fully refrigerated LPG. Ethylene ships are semi refrigerated ships able to transport cargoes at -104 °C.

The gas carriers are designed to carry different types of bulk gasses and the vessels are technically advanced and are often classified into two main segments; LPG (Liquefied petroleum gas) and LNG (Liquified Natural Gas). LNG vessels are specifically designed to trade a high volume of LNG. The Liquified Natural Gasses are natural gasses (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6). Most of the LNG ships have a cargo carrying capacity between 125,000 cum to 260,000 cum. The most popular size is upto 180 000 cum.

Tankers or tanker vessels are designed to carry liquid cargoes in bulk. They are in almost any size and their size is measured in cargo carrying capacity and the unit is either cubic meter or metric tons (dwt). The majority of tanker vessels carry oil, chemicals, or gas. Some tankers are built for very specialized cargoes and only carry one specific product: such as bitumen, freshwater, or wine, while other oil tankers carry many different types of liquid products such as chemical and clean cargoes.

A trained eye can easily determine vessel types on the sea. For the rest of us, information such as commodity, deadweight etc helps differentiate the various types of vessels. However, since there are no standard written definitions for segments and sub segments, every company has to define their own definition of segments and sub segments. We have used the classifications societies definitions, we have asked our R&D partners trading different type of vessels to forward their definitions and we have used companies web pages and some data providers definitions. Below you will find some criteria used when people organise segments and sub-segments in the dry cargo business.

In Maritime Optima, you will find information on more than 5 200 ports. BunkerEx provides bunker prices for different bunker grades and info on bunkers available in various ports. We approach the same type of users. We are both companies wanting to nudge the maritime industry to change old habits because it will save time, reduce costs, and benefit the environment. Both parties will continue developing our products, so let's see what the future will bring, says Omholt-Jensen. Ishaan Hemnani, Co-Founder of BunkerEx, commented, "We are excited to partner with other forward-thinking companies in the Maritime space, and Maritime Optima was no exception. Like all our partnerships, the idea is always to benefit the end-user by providing seamless, accurate data in a single place."

The Norwegian start-up Maritime Optima is preparing to launch a better digital interaction tool for the shipping industry. Despite troubled markets and Covid19, the company is gearing up for growth. To aid the launch of their new product, the company has increased staff, added new board members and successfully raised capital.

An era is over and replaced by another one. Thanks a lot to Thorleif Thorleifsson for founding the company together with Simen and Kristin. Thanks for serving as our Chairman of the Board. Thanks for being such a great coach for me (Kristin) after I left Rendra and we gradually decided to make Maritime Optima into a real company. Maritime Optima continue her voyage with a new Board of Directors but you will always be a part for the soul of this company.

Kristin Omholt-Jensen (54) har levd det meste av livet innen sjøfart. Den nåværende havnen er Aker brygge. Der driver hun oppstartsselskapet Maritime Optima, som hun grunnla sammen med to av sine sønner i april 2018.‍Som første selskap har de mottatt tilskudd av koronapenger fra Innovasjon Norge.

My dream is to create a software releasing more time for value-creating work and building value network because digitalization is about strengthening knowledge and competence. In a world being digitalized, it becomes even more important to be skilled in a subject and to learn to work in teams.