Taiwan shipping group U-Ming Marine is adopting fleet management and voyage optimisation to improve safety, compliance and fuel efficiency
U-Ming has extended its partnership with weather intelligence and ship routeing service provider StormGeo for fleet sustainability and optimisation. It already uses StormGeo’s BonVoyage System (BVS) weather information and route optimisation software.
Through an expanded partnership, U-Ming will apply ship-to-shore fleet and voyage management solutions FleetDSS and ECO Insight on 33 ships.
U-Ming operates a fleet of bulk carriers sized from Capesize, Panamax, Supramax and very large ore carriers, to cement carriers and product tankers.
It will use StormGeo software to ensure these ships comply with international and regional regulations, with improved safety and reduced bunkering costs.
“StormGeo’s ship-to-shore fleet and voyage management solutions will enable our fleet to continually visualise the location, movement and speed of our vessels, optimising our overall voyage performance,” said U-Ming executive vice-president Jeff Hsu.
“This enhanced visualisation and transparency enabled through this partnership will lead to more efficient and effective management of our fleet,” he added.
StormGeo vice president of fleet performance management Thilo Dückert said its solutions will connect to data collection systems on these ships. “Shore-based business units of U-Ming can quickly and easily make different business movements due to the benefits of connectivity and visibility from our all-in-one integrated digitalisation solutions.”
In Norway, e-navigation solutions provider Navtor has secured growth investment from software financer Accel-KKR.
Navtor supplies electronic navigational charts, digital maritime publications, route optimisation and fleet management across an integrated platform.
The additional funds and experience will be used for a new chapter of growth, said Navtor co-founder and chief commercial officer Børge Hetland. “With Accel-KKR’s backing, we see tremendous opportunities to take Navtor to the forefront of our industry,” he said, “and to further serve our customers with a total ship operations platform – from navigation excellence to fleet optimisation and crew performance.”
This may include future merger and acquisition (M&A) activity.
“Specifically, we are very excited to be working with Accel-KKR given their breadth of software-specific and M&A capabilities to accelerate Navtor’s top-line growth,” said Mr Hetland.
Accel-KKR partnered with Crescent Capital Group via its European specialty lending strategy to finance this investment.
Optimised ship operations will be discussed in depth during Riviera Maritime Media’s Vessel Optimisation Webinar Week, from 7 September. Use this link for more details and to register for these webinars
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