Innovations are few and far between for the slow-paced bulk industry. This volatile, often overlooked sector of maritime trade is receiving an infusion of visibility and vessel predictability from data analytics provider FreightFlows.
FreightFlows ties together ship tracking, vessel availability, pricing analytics, predictive path and arrival estimations, commodity cargoes, as well as market, port and fleet activity trends on a comprehensive platform that tracks and predicts these values in real time.
In fact, FreightFlows tracks 71.7% of global tonnage moved in wet/dry bulk markets through its real-time analysis of 550 million data points.
Chief Executive Officer Matt Morgan states that FreightFlows’ mission is to be the best independent data provider, offering visibility to global shipping markets 60 days in advance.
“Our goal at FreightFlows is to make near-term market predictions to help vessel owners, traders, brokers and charterers have much better decision-making power in the international freight markets today and make much more informed decisions on how and when to book, as well as provide predictability about what pricing is going to be to achieve much better utilization for fleets,” Morgan said.
In a perfect world, ships would be ready to move once cargo is accounted for and staged. Unfortunately, bulk shipping isn’t so routine. Unlike their container shipping counterparts, bulk cargo ships aren’t typically scheduled, but instead operate on an as-needed basis; shippers need to find ships to transport their cargo.
At Port Houston, for instance, bulk ships set a course for the Gulf of Mexico and remain idle while loads are prepped at the port.
But what if far fewer ships show up than expected? What if there are port delays? Often, playing the guessing game can burn all parties involved in the bulk trade. In addition, negotiations with ship brokers may last several weeks. FreightFlows benefits all parties involved — cargo owners, ports, carriers and even brokers.
Morgan mentioned a ship broker who spent around five hours a day crunching data and structuring information about the market. Using FreightFlows data, however, that time was slashed to five minutes, which gave the customer time to focus on revenue-generating activities.
FreightFlows’ day-to-day analytics tracks voyage and cargo metrics at every stage of cargo procurement — before, during and after delivery.
“What the industry has is historical data that might lag months behind,” Morgan explains, “or they might have economic forecast data that’s one to 10 years out. But what’s there today if you’re trying to get cargo on a ship and get it on its way, and how do you deal with freight rates that can jump a million dollars seemingly overnight? Not having that predictability is something that companies really struggle with.”
Shippers can easily access pre-fixture variables such as market and price predictions and ship availability, as well as monitor port data while cargo is in transit, including delays and lineups. Equipped with proper foreknowledge, Morgan said that cargo owners and ship operators can avoid costly delays by gauging their speed or changing destinations altogether if necessary…
