In response to the new CII regulations, Dutch ship performance monitoring company We4Sea has released a new update, aimed to significantly improve cooperation between charterers and owners.
Dan Veen, CEO and founder of We4Sea: ”We believe the only way to meet the new CII regulations is by cooperation between charterers and owners, as they both can impact the results. In the proposed new BIMCO clause, focussing on long-term charters, cooperation is key. First, there is a “good faith” duty to cooperate. Secondly, to share findings and data which may assist in monitoring and assessing the vessel’s compliance with CII regulations. And last, in planning future voyages, and sharing best practices which may enable the vessel to improve its energy efficiency.
We4Sea has now released a new module, enabling the real-time sharing of performance data between the parties in the charter party.
Dan Veen: “While we consider the CII far from perfect, we consider it a step in the right direction. In our opinion, ideally, CII will lead to more cooperation and transparency between parties.
In our view, open data transfer between owners and charterers and jointly operating the vessel in an optimum manner is the key to reducing carbon intensity and achieving a good CII rating.”
We4Sea now supports this dialogue by supplying a Single Source of Truth (SSOT) platform. SSOT is a known concept used to ensure that everyone bases business decisions on the same data.
Accessible to both owners and charterers, accurate and reliable data around operations, vessel positions, speed, reported consumption, weather, and CII can now be shared in (near) real-time. This will save lengthy discussions in analysing vessel performance.
Also, the costs of monitoring the vessels may be shared between the parties, saving costs for both owners and charterers.
Using a Digital Twin to analyse the root cause of underperformance
We4Sea can extend the CII monitoring to performance monitoring with a Digital Twin. A Digital Twin is a digital vessel model that can accurately calculate the performance of a vessel, including the effect of sea and weather conditions.
This is enabling Owners and Charterers to make performance assessments on every day of the voyage, and in any weather condition.
In case of underperformance, our Digital Twin can also help to assess the root cause, like weather, hull fouling or mechanical issues, enabling data-driven decision making.
Future proof
This new approach can have a bright future, as it has the power to align all of the competing interests and incentives of a charter-party relationship. It may even be used to incentivize shipowners that outperform the agreed vessel performance.
Dan Veen: “In commercial shipping contracts, we basically need to do things differently to achieve emission reductions and fuel savings. Not only to decrease fuel costs but also in order to meet the IMO’s 2050 mandate to reduce carbon emissions by 50%. The good news is that the technology is now available!”
