Levelseas News

An online shipping exchange being set up by two of the world's biggest oil firms, a leading agrifood multinational and top shipbroker will transform the way traditional shipping markets work, industry experts said. The company, LevelSeas.Com, being set up by oil majors BP Amoco and Shell International Trading and Shipping with food processor and distributor Cargill and shipbroker Clarksons will potentially control 10 percent of bulk commodity movements from day one. But it aims to be a neutral platform open to all sides of the industry. "This will act as a real catalyst for change in the industry - and change for the better. Nothing else offers a seamless service to take us from the start to the end of a voyage…

An online shipping exchange being set up by two of the world's biggest oil firms, a leading agrifood multinational and top shipbroker will transform the way traditional shipping markets work, industry experts said. The company, LevelSeas.com, being set up by oil majors BP Amoco and Shell International Trading and Shipping with food processor and distributor Cargill and shipbroker Clarksons, will potentially control 10 percent of bulk commodity movements right from the beginning. The independent Internet company will provide freight management services, online chartering and freight derivatives, across the $100 billion market in the global movement of wet and dry bulk commodities by sea, the four firms said.

Much as has transpired in mainstream consumer markets, the dot com craze has recently enveloped the maritime world with promises of cost savings and operational efficiencies. While an attrition and natural process of consolidation can eventually be expected, the world of e-commerce solutions for the maritime market is definitely in its infancy. While it is impossible to judge the full working models in this report, the following text contains synopsis reports on some of the more noteworthy market entrants. Recently launched by Boston-based WebPark Corp., Boat-Park.com is an on-line virtual trade show, which seeks to bring together worldwide participants into its virtual trade show, which is open 24/7.

London-based e-shipbroker LevelSeas has acquired main competitor Houston-based SeaLogistics during a week that has seen swift consolidation in the shipping e-commerce sector. LevelSeas was founded by Shell, Cargill, and London shipbroker Clarksons in April 2000, to broker ships for cargoes over the Internet. It has always been seen by the shipping industry as the lead contender, closely followed by SeaLogistics. "LevelSeas will exchange equity for the primary assets of SeaLogistics," it said a statement. The deal with SeaLogistics will strengthen LevelSeas' position in the tanker markets especially, it said. LevelSeas' core business is e-broking, but the platform also offers voyage-management and risk management tools. Freight futures trading will also be offered.

reason that maritime - as usual - will be slow to catch the wave. A frantic dash to set up tanker trading and information websites is being touted as the end of the traditional shipping marketplace, but insiders say there will be no overnight revolution. Two oil majors last week joined forces with the biggest shipbroker and leading agribusiness trading house to set up an online shipping exchange which aimed to transform the $100 billion market in moving bulk commodities by sea. Other shipbrokers are now rushing to update their websites and a rash of dot.com shipping information ventures are also in the pipeline. But many in the industry say it is unlikely the web revolution will undermine the secretive tanker broking trade.

As part of a Group re-organisation, V.Ships, the world's largest provider of ship management and related marine services, has appointed Richard Hext as Chief Executive Officer of the Groups' Marine Services Division. The move follows a restructuring of the Group into two operating divisions; Ship Management and Marine Services. The newly formed Marine Services Division will oversee all activities of the Group other than ship management, including commercial management, ship agency, consulting, travel, insurance, IT and various other support activities. Roberto Giorgi continues to head up the Ship Management Division, overseeing all cargo and leisure ship management activities within the group. Mr. Hext joins V.Ships from LevelSeas, where he was Chief Executive.

A new and formidable player emerged in shipping's e-broking sector this week to challenge the previously undisputed market leader LevelSeas, which is still more than a month away from launching a product. Software provider Strategic said on Tuesday it had acquired its closest competitor Dataworks. Although market sources put the price tag at a relatively low one million pounds ($1.4 million), they said that with 600 customers and numerous products already launched Strategic would provide a strong challenge to LevelSeas. "Levelseas started from scratch," said a source at Strategic. LevelSeas was founded by Shell Cargill and London shipbroker Clarksons in April 2000 to broker ships for cargoes over the Internet.

Internet shipbrokerage Levelseas is seeking to recoup payments from a sacked software developer, a move that illustrates the frustration many Internet start-ups have suffered in targeting the complex shipping industry. "The key to the issue is that they say the product works and we say it doesn't," Levelseas COO Kevin O'Connor said. "At the end of February we realized that CSC was unusable and we haven't used a single line of specification... or a single code," he added. CSC was unavailable to comment on Tuesday. Levelseas took the development of the world's first Internet ship-brokerage in-house in February and launched the finished product at the start of last month.

Internet ship-brokerage Levelseas went live this week, saying it would add functionality to allow cargo-owners and shipowners to trade with each other directly before October. "This initial release of LSX is LevelSeas' first step towards building a global, web enabled freight exchange and voyage management system," said CEO Richard Hext. Hext said that cargo owners and ship owners already did "a hell of a lot" of business directly without the use of a broker, and it was too early to know whether this would increase. "They will make the decision as to whether they'll do more direct, or do more through brokers, or whether they'll work with the smarter brokers who are on the system," he said.

Internet ship-brokerage Levelseas said that seven of the world's biggest commodity traders and three key shipping players had signed up to its system, LSX, allowing them to fix transport deals directly from mid-September. At the click of a button, traders like BP, Cargill or BHP Billiton will for the first time be able to book their cargoes of oil or grain directly onto a ship, a process that was once the almost-exclusive domain of shipbrokers. "They've all signed up to LSX in the last three weeks and will automatically be signed up for LSX-2 in September," Levelseas Chief Operating Officer Kevin O'Connor said on Tuesday. LSX is available on Levelseas' website www.levelseas.com.

A leading software supplier to the shipping industry said on Friday it had launched a new internet-based tool for the chartering and operation of tankers. It said the system had been developed with support from three U.S. ship brokerages: Dietze, McQuilling and Weber. Strategic Software, which acquired its closest competitor Dataworks in May, has long dominated the shipping sector. In the last two years it has come under increasing pressure from internet start-ups keen on taking a slice of the $120 billion per year maritime freight industry. The system is likely to compete with the online services of London's Baltic Exchange, which will be launched next Monday. To some extent it also competes with LSX-2, a product being developed for online ship chartering by London-based Levelseas.