The Charter Party contract and the fuel table – how are they connected?

 

A vessel will during its lifetime sail in different trades in different areas worldwide. It might be in a liner trade or under a charter party contract. The charter party contract will set some boundaries for agreed terms under which the vessel will be sailing. Typically, the agreed fuel oil consumption, the agreed contract speed and the agreed trading area and loading conditions are the main parameters for the contract.

When the owner/operator agrees to the contract terms, there should be a quite clear description of the vessel entering the contract. The description should include a set of fuel oil consumption values for different speeds and draughts, as given in the fuel table.

The more precise description of the vessel, the more certain the ship operator will be in agreeing on a contract for a given vessel. In the contract, the terms for fuel oil consumption, speed and loading condition is given under certain weather and current conditions.

Unfortunately, very frequently the precise description is not accepted and an operator has to stick with a traditional description having only two conditions, i.e. ballast and laden and only one sea state and Beaufort number. Laden condition will be highly influenced by the cargo carried onboard the vessel. For example, for a tanker, a low-density cargo will result in sailing at a draught lower than the scantling or even lower than the design draught which will lead to an over described vessel. In other words, higher consumptions than necessary will be indicated in the description. Therefore, chartering department will face difficulties to find a client.

On the other hand, high density cargo could lead to under described vessel and the operator might face a speed claim. The same goes for the weather conditions used in a charter party contract. Being too conservative and using too high Beaufort numbers will lead again to over described vessel and not being competitive in the market.

Those problems could be overcome by using historical sensor and satellite data from the actual or sister vessels. Analysing the data could help the operator to find the best possible description, the one that is achievable but still competitive enough.

It is important that the vessel can keep the agreed contract and during the sea passage, it should be possible for the operator to keep track of the vessel. If the vessel is connected to a performance system with sensor data, it will be possible to maintain an online overview of the vessels performance towards the charter contract.

Besides being able to monitor the actual conditions, a prediction of the future condition of the vessels fuel oil consumption.

The contract consumption is linked to the contract speed and a similar overview should be available for the speed loss over time. Further the overviews should be available for different weather conditions.

The VesOPS software is connected to sensor data from the vessels, and we can offer online charter party monitoring of speed, consumption and weather. The dashboards are continuously updated with a live data feed and gives an overview of compliance/non-compliance.

Our CP Review module will give the best description of the vessel and give the answers that the operator will need to comply to contract conditions, planning of future operations and distribution of vessels in the market.

The CP Review module will give vessel specific overviews and further a benchmark function for the whole fleet for comparison of CP performance. Once the new 2023 IMO operation ratings will be ratified the CP review module will further be linked to CII ratings and a benchmark towards the world fleet. More about this in the next update from VesOPS.

If you want to more about vessel performance and how you can start monitoring the vessels in your fleet, do not hesitate to call us at VesOPS. We are the performance experts and can offer you advice and solutions that will meet your needs.