NEPA Projects and Investments has developed a fixed rate management concept for dry cargo owners to provide support during the present poor market conditions in the sector. NEPA’s solution provides technical and commercial shipmanagement services at a fixed daily rate, the technical risk being shared with owners as well as commercial profits. NEPA said in a release today it is aiming to attract traditional small owners and also financiers with under-performing shipping assets.

“The traditional shipmanagement model leaves the owners open to additional charges for a wide range of technical and crew related expenses. This is because the risk and benefit of operations are predominantly with the owners. The focus of owners has changed during the last few years, there is pressure growing for technical managers to commit to their estimates. Crowley Accord will show that they mean it when they make a commitment to owners that they will look after their ships as if the ships are their own. Crowley has been doing this successfully for many years with US-flagged ships.” said Sanjay Shesh, MD of Crowley Accord Ship Management Hong Kong, a company NEPA is a joint investor in.

Captain Pappu Sastry, managing partner of NEPA Projects and Investments, said: “From an owner’s perspective, such a solution not just ensures fewer surprises and less administrative work but also reduces the need for owners to deploy their own staff to monitor technical managers. The benchmark will be set at zero variance for technical managers – once that is achieved then there will be no need for owners to cross check technical managers.”

He further commented on commercial management: “We will offer owners a guaranteed fixed daily rate for one year, we will then share the profits of the commercial operations adjusted every quarter. This minimum rating for ideal ships will be set at just over the fixed operating cost given for technical and crew management. This is what we think is a real partnership.”

NEPA Projects has a commercial team based in Hong Kong and is a shareholder in Crowley Accord Shipmanagement.