WISTA Seminar on Dry Bulk Receives Wide Response

 

A Shipping Seminar on "Dry Bulk Chartering, Operations and Arbitration”  held on 27th June 2015 at the Narottam Morarjee Institute of Shipping, Nariman Point, Mumbai was well attended. The event which saw good response from WISTA members was orchestrated by WISTA Jt. Secretary Sumeet Sahi. The speaker for the event was Shri T V Shanbhag, Ex- Chief Controller of Chartering, Government of India, a very well-known and respected personality in the shipping industry.

Sumeet Sahi welcomed all present and spoke about her attending an arbritration there Mr.Shanbhag was the arbritrator and how she was impressed by his wealth of knowledge as well as his down to earth nature.

WISTA President, Sanjam Sahi Gupta spoke about WISTA and the benefits of being a WISTA member.

Ms.Loretta Fernandes , active WISTA member who has worked under Mr.Shanbhag introduced him and she spoke about her personal experience on working with him.

Mr.Shanbhag commenced his lecture by explaining the basic facts about how the dry bulk operation works and also spoke at length on the different types of dry bulk vessels utilized in this trade, specifically mentioning the sizes and dwt of each type of vessel for the benefit of the audience. He also elaborated on the various type of cargoes carried in these ships and also spoke about the role of the ship owners, charterers / operators and ship brokers in this business.

He also touched upon the challenges faced in the dry bulk shipping market which was seeing an erratic downfall in charter rates over the past couple of years and mentioned a few possible reasons as to why this was occurring. He then went on to the 2nd part of his talk which was on Arbitration. Being an arbitrator himself, Mr. Shanbhag had the rapt attention of his audience as he spoke about the role of the arbitrator, how issues between the shipowners and charteres lead to appointment of arbitrator. He also cited examples from his own experiences as an arbitrator on how issues were resolved. The session was very interactive and many a WISTA member from the audience especially the women from the legal sector of the maritime industry had a lot of questions and queries to which all received clarifications and satisfactory answers.

During the lecture, Mr. Shanbhag jokingly mentioned that although people in general tended to think of the shipping business was nothing out of the ordinary, he emphasized that shipping was a very complex and not so easy a business to run. He also said that the terms used exclusively in the shipping business would seem strange to a non shipping person and cited the example of "charter party and bunkers". The meanings of these words he added would not be found in any English dictionary. Mr. Shanbhag also graciously informed the audience that in case they had any problems and issues they required help with, they were welcome to drop him an email and he would gladly give his advice to them. The event ended with coffee and snacks and a thank you address to Mr. Shanbhag.

WISTA Gen Secretary Ms.Sharmila Amin presented a bouquet to Mr. Suresh B. Sawant, Institute Secretary of NMIMS and thanked him for supporting WISTA and allowing the use of their classroom.

The event was well attended by 40 ladies including Jhanavi Mehta of MSC, Meera Kumar of iInterchange Systems Pvt Ltd, Bhakti Bharve [Advocate] and ladies from SCI, JM Baxi, Sarjak, GAC, All Cargo, CH Robinson, Sea Crest, Wallem Shipping , DP World and more.