Port Call Optimization in three oil shipping markets

The role of the Port Authority has been changing over the years and is still a changing one in the present time. The performance of ports, a customer orientation and a supply chain focus are high on the agenda in these changes. It seems only natural that herewith the harbour master, who traditionally cares about a high safety level in the port, adds to his focus a high performing port. In his case, such high performance will address the performance of the vessel in the port. And this is also where he can find his customer focus; in digging into the needs of the port clients as far as the port call concerns and contribute, for the clients, to a higher productivity of the vessel. He can do so by taking an information position, notably an information position that focuses on the vessel and that takes the vessels’ productivity as point of departure. The information in question has two dimensions; one, the exchange of planning information between all the port services around the vessel and two, by up-to-date, accurate and reliable nautical port information of all sections in the port. The harbour master who thus manages to optimize the calls that vessels pay at his port, contributes to the competitiveness of this port. By looking at a structured way to the port customers’ business, one can assess the relevance of nautical port information and the exchange of planning information. This is now done for three oil shipping markets, but could as well be done in such manner for the other wet bulk sectors, the dry bulk markets and the container sector. One of the findings is that the need for ports to optimize the calls that vessels pay at their ports, has increased since the balance between production flows, being more captive to industry, and trade flows, being much more volatile, has changed towards increasing trade flows. Another finding is that the need for optimization in port calls on the clients side lies with the industrial shippers and the traders, as well as it does with the shipowners, but for different reasons. The industrial shipper, having the market power, is a bigger driver though for optimization. And since large traders make a move towards more industrial shipping as well, the call for optimizing port calls only increases. The processes that can be optimized by the harbour master appear not only to lie in the port leg, but also in the approach part of the sea leg and in the preparations for the port call; in deadweight utilization of the ship, when fixing vessels and estimating their freight rates. In the port leg it is the time ships spend in port that can be improved in two ways; in the organization of the services around the ship and in the execution of the port call, when there are no costly changes necessary in the initial plan of the visit. And finally the study showed that the smaller the ship, the more added value of an optimized port call.