Avoiding miscalculations and information gaps

Driven by its core values and responsible business strategies, Bahri is committed to positioning Saudi Arabia as a unique regional logistics gateway to three continents and contributing to the Kingdom’s 2030 Vision by continuously expanding its services and presence across the world.

“As the Saudi national carrier, the company supports the objectives of the National Transformation Plan (NTP) on the world stage by connecting economies and facilitating new trade lanes to enhancing our position as a major trading hub. In order to do so, it is essential for Bahri to operate at maximum efficiency without compromising on quality or safety,” says Faisal Al Husseini, Head of Chartering at Bahri Chemicals, with responsibility for managing the fleet of chemical and product tankers.

Commercially managing fleets of vessels is highly inefficient when you rely on manual processes. “The business model needs to facilitate rapid decision-making while being inherently robust and accurate,” said Al-Husseini. “In a rising or falling market having information that is accessible, timely and accurate is critical. Relying on manual processes impairs our agility and could result in costly miscalculations”. Important functions take far too much time and they may be prone to errors, such as voyage estimates, time bars and demurrage miscalculations are but a few examples. Manual processes also have the potential to compromise safety and increase risk, while costing time and money.

“Across the chemicals and CPP fleets we’re operating in very competitive markets where we trade hundreds of cargoes a month. We need to have information at our finger tips so that we can zero in on the most profitable voyages and allow customers to vet our ships and check restrictions in a timely manner. We also need to ensure smooth operations for our vessels by making sure certification and documentation is up to date and instantly available whenever we need it,” Faisal Al Husseini says.

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An industry standard that deserves to be recognized

Faisal Al Husseini says: “Our in-house technical managers, Bahri Ship Management, are responsible for making sure certificates are renewed, updated and uploaded to [Milbros]. Whenever we need to fix a ship or go through a vetting procedure, all the information we require is always to hand. It helps our team to work quickly, because we can pull what we need from the system at any time and from any location and move from one cargo to the next, fast.”

“On chemical voyages we often have multiple discharge ports where we regularly encounter terminal physical restrictions such as displacement or waterline to manifold height. There may also be intransit cargo restrictions where a vessel could be prohibited from calling a port due to a specific cargo grade onboard. It’s also vital to understand how discharging affects the draft and how this might impact the order in which we need to visit the discharge ports. But if only it was that simple! We often carry numerous grades of chemicals and vegetable oils in segregated tanks, with each chemical having its own properties and carriage requirements such as sensitivity to heat and acceptable tank coating. Milbros is a critical assessment tool for us in this regard. Meanwhile the Draft Calculator means that I can run multiple scenarios without imposing too much on the master to revert with his stowage plans and draft calculations,” says Faisal Al Husseini.

He continues: “Occasionally we come across new or unfamiliar chemical grades that are perhaps only identified by an acronym. The Commodity Information from Milbros enables us to get on top of the identification and compatibility issues, such as the correct identification of the IBC code shipping name, wall wash test criteria and the compatibility with our existing tank coatings like Interline 9001, Marineline or Zink.”

One standout feature is that Milbros is an information sharing platform where all of our users that are subscribed to the system contribute comments and information. Faisal Al Husseini says, “My operators really love this feature because it adds real-world experience to the database. In effect, recommendations are tested and reviewed, and where it is appropriate, information is revised by [Veson] to improve the advice given.”

“Over ten years of using Veson software, I haven’t come across another product like it. Everyone uses it, and it’s an essential part of our business. Today the shipping industry is moving towards digitisation and rapid access to secure information stored in the cloud is the key. [Veson] has become a shipping industry standard. It’s a great product and it deserves to be recognized,” Faisal Al Husseini says.

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