Cutting freight costs by pooling cargoes

摘要

POOLING of cargoes by bulk freight cahrterers could be the costsaving route of the future for ferroalloys producers, said Tom reststulen, md of Elkem Chartering. Over the course of three years, Elakem made a saving of about 26 percent short ton by pooling volumes from its Norwegian plants, and is looking for cargo partners to continue and expand the practice, eh said. "Combining the best expertise available with substantial volume through direct or indirect cargo control will reduce she ballast ratio, it will improve quality control and chance freight risk arbitrage and benefits from cycle management," said Preststulen. The accentuation on speed in shipping will lead to segmentation between more expensive industrial commodities, with minimum handling operations, and cheaper bulk commodities where hadling costs are more important. There is a trend towards larger ships in the latter category and strategic alliances between mineral/alloy producers have already sprung up, such as that between BHP and Elkem which has allowed Europe and Norway to be serviced by panamx vessels.