Commercial Shipping, Chartering and Finance

This portal covers how ships earn money and are paid for: voyage, time and bareboat chartering, laytime and demurrage, freight and hire, Worldscale, the sale-and-purchase and newbuilding markets, shipping cycles, ship finance and leasing, freight derivatives and market indices.

The working documents are the standard forms, chiefly GENCON for voyage charters, NYPE 2015 for time charters and BARECON for bareboat charters, with Worldscale for tanker freight and the Baltic Exchange indices for market rates.

The legal analysis of clauses and judgments belongs to Maritime Law and the Law of the Sea; freight forwarding and trade documentation belong to Logistics, Freight Forwarding and Trade.

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Chartering and Charter Parties: How Ships Are Hired
How a ship is hired: the four charter structures, who pays what under each, the BIMCO standard forms, the risk-bearing clauses, and the fixture process.
Voyage charter party: laytime, demurrage and freight
A voyage charter party is a contract of affreightment under which an owner carries a stated cargo between named ports for freight, with laytime and demurrage.
Time charter party: hire, off-hire and redelivery
A time charter party hires a vessel with her crew for a period. How hire, off-hire, the employment clause, speed warranties and redelivery allocate risk between owner and charterer.
Bareboat Charter Party: Possession, Liability and Finance
The demise charter in full: what possession transfers, BARECON 2017's five parts, who is the ISM Company, arrest and pollution liability, and finance leases.
NYPE 2015 Time Charter Form: Clauses, Off-Hire, Riders
NYPE 2015 is the ASBA and BIMCO dry-cargo time charter dated 3 June 2015: 57 clauses, off-hire at Clause 17, Clause 12 speed warranty, Clause 54 arbitration.
Voyage estimation: building a TCE before fixing
A voyage estimate reduces freight, bunkers, port costs, canal dues and EU compliance cost to one Time Charter Equivalent in USD per day before a ship is fixed.
Ship Sale and Purchase: The MOA, Saleform and Closing
How secondhand ships are bought and sold under the Norwegian Saleform MOA: deposit, inspection, NOR, delivery documents, liens, defaults and demolition sales.
Ship finance and asset valuation
The ship as a capital asset: how earnings capitalize into hull value, the SALEFORM deposit, newbuilding instalments, mortgage LTV covenants and LDT scrap value.
Baltic Dry Index and freight indices
How the Baltic Dry Index, the tanker, gas and container freight indices are built: the route baskets, their weights, the panellist method and the TCE conversion.
Forward freight agreements (FFAs)
The cash-settled freight derivative: contract specifications by venue, FFABA terms, Asian settlement, clearing and margin, the regulatory frame and basis risk.

All articles in this portal

23 articles, plus 170 in preparation.