Abstract
It was another Friday evening at the office, when Dimitris was looking at the view of Piraeus port, thinking some words from the last meeting: “We need to do what needs to be done, in order to be fully compliant, over and above regulations, industry standards and principals’ requirements. Our commitment to compliance ‘by-the-book’ is our way of doing business, and money should be spent for this concept”. Dimitris is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Dorian LPG Management Corporation, the wholly owned subsidiary of Dorian LPG Ltd. Dorian is tasked with the technical management of the fleet owned by the parent company. Dimitris has been also a member of the shore technical management team since 2004, when the shipping company was a small one, with three owned ships on the water (plus two under management from other owners), manned with less than 80 seafarers and 17 people ashore. The Chairman and CEO John Hadjipateras, holding a long experience on tanker vessels management, had announced the new strategy of the company. He envisioned his 200-year-old family shipping company running in a niche market, that of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) carriers. LPG was considered one of the energy resources of the future, and at that time (2001), there were very few ships in the world, specialised to carry this dangerous, liquid commodity. The number of competitors in the LPG market was limited. Entry barriers were high, due to stringent regulations and industry standards. Clients were also few, and already known to the management team, as the same oil majors were chartering Dorian tanker vessels for decades. The option to buy second-hand ships was not even considered, as the characteristics of the existing fleet (in terms of ship age, capacity, technology) did not match to Dorian’s strategy which would focus on modern, fuel efficient ships with clear advantages over the existing ones.
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Notes
- 1.
The use of the pronoun ‘she’ to refer to a ship is a common practice in the shipping industry.
- 2.
cbm: cubic meter (m3), a measurement of volume that an ocean freight shipment can take, equal to space of 1 m wide, 1 m long and 1 m high.
- 3.
ECO-class: ECO design of ship ensures improved fuel efficiency through incorporating hull optimisation, engine features and technical specifications.
- 4.
Sister vessels: ships that are of the same class or of virtually identical design; can be easily chartered under COA.
- 5.
Time charter: type of chartering where a merchant (charterer) hires the ship for a specific period of time, which may vary from days, weeks, months or years.
- 6.
Spot market voyage: type of chartering where the ship is chartered to carry an agreed quantity of cargo from port A to port B (voyage). The spot market is highly volatile, because commodities are traded immediately (‘on the spot’) and ships are employed voyage by voyage.
- 7.
Contract of Affreightment (COA): a contract according to which the shipowner agrees to carry goods for the charterer in the ship, or to give the charterer the use of the whole or part of the ship’s cargo carrying space for the carriage of goods on a specified voyage or voyages or for a specified time. Under this chartering type, the agreement is usually on a consecutive voyage basis, and multiple vessels may be involved.
- 8.
Bareboat chartering: type of chartering agreement wherein administrative and technical assistance is not provided by the shipowner. The charterer is responsible for providing crew, operating expenses, insurance and port expenses.
- 9.
Ship’s hierarchy and ranks: ship’s staff is divided by the deck, engine, steward department and other. The captain (or master) is the ship’s highest responsible person on board, acting on behalf of the shipowner. The main ranks on board are: Senior officers (i.e. captain, chief officer/mate, chief engineer and second engineer), officers (or junior officers, i.e. third, fourth assistant engineers), and ratings (lower level crew of mariners without a certificate of competence). Cadet captain and engineer are unlicensed trainees that may also be part of the crew.
- 10.
Safe manning: describes the minimum number of duly certified deck officers and engineers, as well as overall personnel that every vessel must carry on board. The manning scales depend on the type and size of vessel, the trade in which she is engaged, and other factors (see IMO 2011).
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Progoulaki, M., Tasoulis, K. (2018). Case 5: Dorian LPG’s Rapid Fleet Growth: A Story of Maritime HR Planning and People Management. In: Malik, A. (eds) Strategic Human Resource Management and Employment Relations. Springer Texts in Business and Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0399-9_19
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