The tonnage does not come from a vendor
A dry bulk broker can buy a position list. A project desk mostly cannot. The ships that matter are open where an owner says they are open, in a circular sent to twenty brokers at once, and the desk that reads those circulars first has the only copy of the market that exists.
So the mailbox is the input. Connect the account you already use and the circulars are parsed as they arrive: vessel, open dates, the port or the trading area, and the owner's original wording kept beside the parsed dates, because abbreviations like OPEN SPORE 11/14 AUG DELY DOP carry terms no structured field records.
Nothing is written to the board without a broker confirming it. A circular gives a name and no IMO, and 101,900 hulls contain thousands of shared names, so matching one to a hull is a judgement rather than a lookup. The software does the reading; the desk does the deciding.
What the register holds, and what it does not
101,900 hulls carrying an IMO number, with length overall on almost all of them, beam, deadweight, type, build year and flag. Length and beam are the figures that decide a lock, a berth and a canal, which is the restriction a project fixture usually turns on.
It does not hold gear. There is no crane capacity, no hold or hatch dimension, no tween deck. Those fields are not thin, they are empty, and a desk that needs to filter by lifting capacity will not get it here today. Saying so is cheaper than letting you find out in week two.
Summer draft is on roughly half the fleet. Where it is missing the hull shows it as unknown rather than as zero, everywhere, which is the rule the whole product follows: a blank figure and a zero figure are different facts and are never rendered the same.
The cycle, end to end
Cargo enquiries
Desk and aboveWhat a charterer needs moved, with the commodity, the quantity, the load and discharge, and the laycan. Enquiries arriving by e-mail are parsed the same way circulars are, and a desk can let voyage cargo file itself without review once it trusts the parse.
Tonnage matching
Desk and aboveOne cargo against the open tonnage on the desk, by deadweight range, type, and region to region. The answer says which ships are free in the window and where, and separates what came from your e-mail from what came from the shared register. For a practical explanation of the process, see matching a cargo to a ship.
Sea distance and passage time
Desk and aboveBetween any two of 11,425 ports, routed through real water rather than a great circle, with canal transits where they apply.
Voyage estimate and TCE
Chartering and aboveBunkers by grade, port costs, canal dues and the time charter equivalent per day, run against the real distance rather than an assumed one.
Fixtures
Desk and aboveThe deal record, from firm offer through subjects to fixed, with the recap held as it was issued rather than regenerated later from data that has since moved.
Laytime and demurrage
Chartering and aboveA statement of facts becomes a laytime sheet: each event timestamped, each stoppage carrying its reason, and the demurrage or despatch falling out of the timeline instead of a spreadsheet.
Owners and managers
Chartering and aboveWho owns a hull, who manages her commercially and who technically, which are four different roles and routinely four different companies. With contacts where the desk has them.
Project Cargo & Heavy Lift Chartering
Project cargo and heavy lift fixtures require more than simply finding a vessel. Brokers need to compare cargo requirements, vessel capability, availability, routing and commercial details before moving a shipment forward.
Neptune Atlas brings those workflows together so your desk can work from cargo enquiry to suitable tonnage, voyage estimates and fixture management in one workspace.
What it is not
It is not a live tracking product. A position list says when a ship is free next; an AIS fix says where she is now; a port line-up says what a port expects at the berth. They are three different records and conflating them is the classic error in this trade, so they are three different screens here.
There is a live AIS map on the Chartering plan and above, and it is honest about its age: past six hours it says the positions are not live rather than drawing them as though they were.
Project Cargo & Heavy Lift Chartering FAQs
What is project cargo chartering software?
Project cargo chartering software helps brokers and chartering teams manage cargo enquiries, identify suitable vessels, review availability, estimate voyages and manage fixtures for project and heavy lift shipments.
How does Neptune Atlas help with heavy lift chartering?
Neptune Atlas brings cargo enquiries, vessel information, tonnage search, voyage estimates and fixture workflows together so chartering teams can evaluate project cargo opportunities in one workspace.
Can Neptune Atlas help find suitable tonnage for project cargo?
Yes. Neptune Atlas provides vessel and tonnage search capabilities that help brokers evaluate vessels against the requirements of project cargo and heavy lift enquiries.
Who is Neptune Atlas Heavy Lift software for?
Neptune Atlas is designed for brokers and chartering desks handling project cargo, heavy lift and other specialized shipping requirements where vessel suitability and availability need to be evaluated carefully.
What it costs, or read the difference between a position list, an AIS fix and a port line-up first.