Neptune Atlas logo Neptune Atlas

Matching

Matching a cargo to a ship

·

A cargo enquiry is one list. A position list (the list of ships that are free soon) is the other. A broking desk’s job is to join the two. It looks like a database query, but it is not one: five of the checks are arithmetic, four are a matter of judgement, and the checks that rule a ship out fastest are often not the ones a newcomer looks at first.

Short answer

To match a cargo to available tonnage, turn the quantity into a deadweight band. Then filter the open ships on trading region, laycan overlap (including the empty voyage to the load port), gear, age and draught. That takes a few hundred hulls down to a handful in seconds. The real work is still to choose which of the handful the charterer will accept, and which owner will actually do the deal.

The cargo

Here is a realistic dry cargo enquiry. The figures are examples, and market numbers change. The structure stays the same.

CHTRS : FIRST CLASS SHIPPERS, FULL STYLE ON FIRM
30,000 MT 5 PCT MOLOO CEMENT CLINKER IN BULK, SF ABT 26
1 SB KANDLA
1 SB KRISHNAPATNAM
LAYCAN 08/14 OCT
FIOST BENDS
10,000 MT PWWD SSHINC LOAD / 6,000 MT PWWD SSHINC DISCH
DEM USD 14,000 PDPR / DES HALF DEM BENDS
MAX 20 YRS, GEARED WITH GRABS REQUIRED

The tonnage

Here are five lines from the morning’s circulars. They are already filtered to the ships near the load area.

MV OCEAN PRIDE    28,400 DWT  2009  GEARED 4x30T  OPEN FUJAIRAH  04/07 OCT
MV HAN RUN        32,900 DWT  2004  GEARED 4x30T  OPEN SINGAPORE 06/09 OCT
MV BRIGHT SAKURA  33,700 DWT  2013  GEARLESS      OPEN KANDLA    09/11 OCT
MV ALKA STAR      37,500 DWT  2016  GEARED 4x35T  OPEN MUNDRA    07/10 OCT
MV NORDIC TERN    56,800 DWT  2015  GEARED 4x30T  OPEN COLOMBO   05/08 OCT

One of these five ships is a candidate. The skill is to find which one, and to explain why the other four are not.

Much of this information still arrives in tonnage circulars. The broker has to read each one and work out the ship’s position and when it is free.

The filters that are arithmetic

1. Intake, not deadweight

Deadweight is the total weight a ship can carry. Cargo is only part of it. Fuel (bunkers), fresh water, stores and the ship’s constants (fixed weights on board, such as spare parts) all come out of the same number before any clinker goes on board. As a rough working rule, a bulk carrier loads about 93 per cent of its summer deadweight as cargo. On a long voyage with full fuel tanks, it loads less.

So you must turn the cargo quantity into a deadweight before you filter the list. The tolerance decides which end of the range you size against. 5 PCT MOLOO means 5 per cent more or less in owner’s option. The owner chooses the exact figure between 28,500 and 31,500. Strictly, the ship only needs to carry the bottom of that range, which needs about 30,600 dwt at 93 per cent intake. A ship that can carry the top of the range needs about 33,900. If the enquiry said MOLCHOPT, the charterer would choose the figure, and only the top figure would matter.

In practice, a broker offers ships in the middle of that range. A charterer who writes 30,000 wants 30,000 moved. An owner who chooses the minimum, on a ship that can only just reach it, is offering a weaker ship than one that carries the full stem (the full cargo). So call the useful band 31,000 to 34,000, and be ready to explain your choice at either end.

The top end of the band is about money, not physics. A ship much larger than the cargo can easily carry it. But the freight then pays for deadweight the charterer is not using, so a ship closer in size to the cargo will usually win the business. A common working limit is about one and a half times the quantity.

2. Cube, when the cargo is light

The stowage factor is the space that one tonne of cargo takes up. Clinker, at about 26, is dense. The ship reaches its load line (the deepest it may legally sit in the water) long before the holds are full. So deadweight is the limit, and the grain capacity in the ship’s particulars does not matter.

With a light cargo, the limit changes. A grain cargo with a stowage factor near 48 fills the holds first. The ship runs out of space while it still has deadweight to spare. This is called cubing out. At that point the size class tells you nothing useful. The answer is in the particulars: grain and bale capacity, hold by hold. Two hulls with the same deadweight can differ by thousands of tonnes of intake on a light cargo.

3. Draught, at both ends

Draught is how deep the ship sits in the water. Every port has a maximum draught for ships arriving and leaving. A tidal port has a maximum that changes during the day. Kandla is in a tidal gulf. So for a cargo of this size, check the sailing draught and the tidal window first. A ship that can easily carry the cargo may not be able to leave the port with it on board.

Water density matters too. For the same weight, a ship sits deeper in brackish or fresh water than in salt water. That is why an enquiry states a salt water or brackish water arrival draught. The difference between them is an amount of cargo, sometimes a large amount.

4. Gear

The enquiry says GEARED WITH GRABS REQUIRED, gear being the ship’s own cranes. This means the discharge berth has no shore cranes for this cargo, or the charterer does not plan to pay for them. So a gearless ship is out, however well it fits everything else. When gear is required, confirm the safe working load and whether grabs are on board. Cranes rated for bagged cargo are not the same as cranes that work clinker with grabs all day.

You will also see the opposite. GEARLESS ACCEPTABLE on an enquiry means the charterer will consider a gearless ship. A gearless ship of the same size is usually cheaper, and the charterer is telling you the terminal can handle it.

5. The dates, including the ballast leg

The laycan is 08 to 14 October. The ship may not be presented before the eighth, and the charterer may cancel if it is not ready by the fourteenth. Do not compare the laycan with the position date. Compare it with the position date plus the sailing time to the load port.

Newcomers often skip this step. A ship open in Singapore on the sixth is about two and a half thousand miles from Kandla. At a normal laden speed, that is close to ten days of sailing. You can check a ballast leg (the empty voyage to the load port) like this one with the port to port distance calculator. The ship arrives after the cancelling date, so it was never a candidate, whatever its particulars say. A ship open at Mundra on the tenth is a few hours away and well inside the window.

The ballast leg costs money as well as time, and this fixture pays for it even though it earns nothing. A better rate two thousand miles away often gives a worse daily return than an ordinary rate on a cargo right next to the ship. A voyage estimate is the tool for this comparison.

The filters that are somebody’s opinion

Judgement decides the rest of the shortlist. Be clear about which checks are judgement, because these are the ones people argue about.

Five ships, one candidate

ShipVerdictWhy
OCEAN PRIDEOut 28,400 dwt gives an intake of about 26,400. It cannot carry even the bottom of the tolerance.
HAN RUNOut The size and gear are right. But the ship is over the age limit, and it is also ten days of sailing from a load port whose window closes on the fourteenth. Either reason alone rules it out.
BRIGHT SAKURAOut The best fit on the list, and already at Kandla. But it is gearless. One line of the enquiry rules it out.
ALKA STAROffer this ship Inside the band, geared with grabs, four years old, and open at nearby Mundra on the tenth. Check its sailing draught for Kandla and confirm the grabs.
NORDIC TERNOut It can carry the cargo, but it is nearly twice the size. A Supramax offered for a Handysize cargo loses on freight to any ship closer to the quantity.

Going from five lines to one offer is normal. If a shortlist stays long, you have usually not applied a filter yet. This is also why seeing many positions matters more than analysis. The desk that had eleven ships in the area that morning had a real choice, and the desk that had three did not.

What a database can and cannot do for you

Most of the arithmetic in the first section is truly mechanical, and a search should do it. Three things get in the way, and all three are worth knowing whatever tool you use.

26,304

Hulls in the register that have an IMO number and no deadweight at all, out of 101,900. A deadweight filter drops every one of them without telling you. So a search that looks complete is missing about a quarter of the register, unless it says so.

Positions give an area, not a berth. Circulars say OPEN WC INDIA or OPEN AG much more often than they name a port. So if you filter open ships on an exact load port, you throw away almost everything. The useful unit is the trading region, because ships sail empty to cargoes within a region.

No one holds the drydock dates. A ship booked for a special survey is not free for a voyage that overlaps it, however good its position looks. The date is known months ahead, but it appears on no position list.

The software and the broker do different parts of the work. Turn the quantity into a band and filter on region, laycan overlap, gear, age and draught, and you go from a few hundred hulls to a handful in seconds. The real work is still to decide which of the handful the charterer will accept, and which owner will actually do the deal.

Brokers who do this across many cargo enquiries and open positions can use software built for ship brokers. It brings vessel search, cargo matching and follow-up into one workspace. For dry bulk brokers, see how the dry bulk chartering workflow brings tonnage search, cargo enquiries and fixtures together.

Matching one cargo against every open ship on your desk?

Neptune Atlas turns an enquiry’s quantity and tolerance into a deadweight band. It searches the positions on file in the load port’s trading region that overlap the laycan, and it shows the band and region on the result. See how position lists work, or start 7 days free.

References

How to read a cargo enquiryThe e-mail that says a charterer needs something moved, read field by field, and why an enquiry is not an offer. How to read a tonnage circularThe open-tonnage e-mail: its fields, the short forms added to each line, and why the ship's name is the hard part. Dry bulk vessel sizesHandysize to Capesize: where the deadweight bands sit, why their edges are trade habits, and how many ships fall in each. Handysize vs Handymax vs Supramax vs UltramaxThe four geared bulk carrier classes side by side: deadweight, cranes, draft and trades, and why the limits between them keep changing. Reading a ship's particularsWhat each figure on a vessel description limits, why GRT measures volume, and why draught rules a ship out long before deadweight does. What a ship can actually liftA 58,000 deadweight ship does not lift 58,000 tonnes, and at a shallow berth it may not lift 52,000. The sums, written out step by step.

Neptune Atlas

In Neptune Atlas an enquiry's quantity and tolerance become a deadweight band, searched against the positions on file in the load port's trading region and overlapping the laycan. The band and the region are printed on the result with the reasoning behind them, so a broker who knows a hull belongs on the list can widen the search instead of wondering why it is missing from it. Every paid plan starts with 7 free days. A card is needed to start them, and cancelling before they end costs nothing.

Try 7 days free Ship chartering software for brokers What each plan includes