Shipping agency focus: GAC

Although the oil sector has been the most robust year-to-date, it is showing signs of slowdown as both oil demand and production is low. Many tankers are acting as floating storage, thus reducing the number of ship movements.

The agency business relies heavily on movement of ships and even though there are a large number of oil, chemical and gas tankers waiting off Fujairah their service requirements are lesser as they are mostly waiting for voyage orders.

Have operational costs been affected by the credit crunch?

Almost all our principals are feeling the impacts of the credit crunch as the profits generated by their ships are not enough to cover their operational costs. As such, they are looking for cost savings in all areas or cutting down on services. This cost saving drive inevitably spills over to the agents and our volumes are affected.

However, this is also an opportune time for agents to explore more innovative shipping solutions to enable principals to reduce their operation or procurement costs so as to help them weather the storms of the global economic down-turn. GAC has developed innovative solutions that not only save costs, but time, lives and cargo as well.

One of the latest offerings include GAC Ship Lay-up Solutions which offers fully tailored lay-up solutions worldwide to help owners/operators avoid non profitable journeys, reduce wear & tear, fuel consumption and insurance premiums during periods of low demands

This June, we launched an innovation in crisis management and anti-piracy services called GAC Protective Solutions to provide professional security and protective solutions for ship, cargo and crew.

Another example will be the GAC-SMHI Weather Solutions which offers customised products and meteorological expertise to help principals navigate using the most efficient route under any weather conditions. This helps to reduce bunker costs for the principals. Furthermore its latest web-based application Fleetweb 3.0 allows ship operators to easily monitor and control fleet performance 24/7 to achieve greater operational and cost efficiency.

How has the piracy issue affected your operations? What steps do you take to minimise vulnerability around the Gulf of Aden?

As we are not ship-owners or operators, our operations are not directly affected by piracy which has more direct impact on our customers. Say if a vessel was to be hijacked, it will be out of circulation for a while and that will affect her calls to ports that she may have otherwise visited. In this case, our operations will be adversely affected.

The Gulf of Aden is the latest piracy ‘hot spot’. We keep close contacts with defense agencies e.g. UKMTO in Dubai, and through them we also provide assistance in liaising with the armed forces in the field if a ship does come under pirate attack. GAC Protective Solutions which I mentioned earlier is designed to support vessel Masters to navigate safely through this War Risk Zone, as determined by Lloyd’s of London.