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Estimate and manage time in port

PortLog is a digital solution providing tools to measure and manage time in port for commercial tramp shipping port calls, including granular breakdowns of port turnaround times, port costs and restrictions.

We combine cleansed, standardised and fully anonymised Statement of Facts data with AIS, weather, and berth-level restriction information, to provide a complete solution for accurate freight pricing for the port-stay component of a voyage at terminal level.

Our PortLog customers

Pacific Basin chooses PortLog to solve the ‘unpaid time’ challenge in ports and reduce emissions

We’re delighted to announce a landmark deal to provide our solution to the entire fleet of Pacific Basin, one of the world’s leading owners and operators of modern handysize and supramax dry bulk ships.

The PortLog platform will be utilised across all of Pacific Basin’s over 260 owned and chartered vessels, which make over 5,000 port calls every year in around 600 ports across 100 countries.

4 main highlights of PortLog

Port Costs

Estimated port costs, using extensive DA-Desk data

Access to benchmark DA data

Insights related to discounts and tariffs

Request-an-estimate service

Live Chat (no bots!)

Time in Port

Identification of risks and opportunities related to port stays, using SOF and AIS data, along with geofenced berths, terminals, and ports, including;

  • Terminal predictor
  • Port holidays
  • Weather and rain impact
  • First Come First Served Index
  • Vessels at terminal
  • Terminal efficiency

Terminal Restrictions

Structured restriction data and general information, obtained by us from port agents, for berths, terminals and ports

  • Draft / LOA / Beam and more….
  • Tide and daylight restrictions
  • Port / terminal insights

Data refreshed regularly and when requested by users

Learning Loop

Marcura Observations, created from analysis of trends and patterns from SOFs and DA data

Assistance with creating and managing own-company Insights

Easily available throughout the platform and shared automatically during the port call cycle

PortLog screenshots, starting with….  Port cost estimator

Here’s just a very small sample of some of the tools and features available on PortLog today. We’d be delighted to show you around the whole thing – please get in touch.

Terminal Restrictions

Restriction information directly from agents. PortLog users can request latest restriction data directly from agents via the ask-an-agent button

Time in Port – delays, risks and opportunities

Check potential delays including weather and terminal stoppages, identified from digitalised SOFs.

Terminal predictor

Risks and exposure can vary significantly between terminals. Using SOF data PortLog predicts the most likely terminal for your port call.

Marcura Observations

Share port-related knowledge effectively across your organisation, with your own insights and Marcura observations. Live Chat is available in case of any questions.

Rain Estimator

While fixing a voyage or planning a port stay, anticipating the expected rain delays can be complicated. Not only will this impact your laytime calculations and estimated unpaid time, but it may have further knock-on effects, for example, the vessel missing her next laycan. An accurate estimation of the rain delays depends on the cargo sensitivity and also the operational procedures at each specific port/terminal, making it difficult to predict. With the Rain Estimator, you can minimise risk and uncertainty related to rain delays using a statistical analysis of the available data.

What is the Rain Estimator in PortLog?

The monthly Rain Estimator helps to estimate unpaid stoppage time due to rain, during a loading or discharging operation. It is cargo and port/terminal specific, based on rain stoppages observed from SOFs.

PortLog and Veson’s partnership for dry bulk

Veson VIP + PortLog = 🚢📈👍. We are excited to announce that PortLog’s time-in-port and cost data is now available in VIP.

The integration between PortLog and VIP for dry bulk customers brings PortLog’s exclusive data straight into the heart of the Veson IMOS Platform (VIP), available in the notification pane of the voyage estimator.

Operators, charterers and ship owners can now more accurately estimate the PnL impact of their commercial port calls, in order to better manage risk and realise operational, cost, and environmental efficiencies.

PortLog draws on extensive transactional data with over 20 million harmonised time events extracted from SOFs and multiple layers of proprietary Master Data.

This enables chartering and operations teams to:

💵 Estimate the total cost of a port call
💸Estimate the financial risks related to total turnaround time, unplanned downtime, weather impact and berth level restrictions
🏗️Predict the relevant calling terminal within a port with more accuracy than ever before
🌧️ Assess the risks and opportunities related to demurrage and despatch impact at the pre-fixture stage

PortLog benefits

  • Measure, understand and manage your time-in-port exposure at terminal level, and reduce unpaid time in port
  • Port cost estimates at your fingertips
  • Time-stamped information on berth restrictions and terminal efficiency sourced from agents
  • Share decision-critical knowledge across your company with the relevant person at the relevant time

In really simple terms, what is PortLog?

PortLog was launched in 2018, as part of the Marcura Group, and is used daily by some of the largest dry bulk vessel operators in the world.

PortLog enables shipping companies to measure and manage vessel turnaround times in port, by providing anonymised industry benchmarks via digitised Statements of Facts.

As a practical, data-driven check-before-fixing tool, it delivers detailed insights into cost, restrictions, and terminal efficiency.

The digital infrastructure enables companies to use data, which is traditionally held in information silos, to optimise every port call, in close collaboration with stakeholders like Captains and port agents.

We are currently developing ground-breaking and exciting new developments, deploying the power of digital CP terms to enable advanced simulation of time and risks in port.

We created PortLog after customer requests

Time is money and more than 40% of a vessel’s time is spent in port.

There are a host of tools available to optimise speed, consumption and other parameters for the sea leg portion of a voyage  – but what about the port stay?

We solve the last piece of the voyage optimisation puzzle by helping you plan and manage time and cost in port.

Traditionally time in port and at terminal is difficult to measure and benchmark, leaving a black box of unsubstantiated or uninformed buffers to voyage estimates in its wake.

Why shouldn’t the time a vessel spends in port, including the unpaid time not covered by demurrage, be priced and reflected accurately in the freight rate?

Five years ago, Marcura set up the technology and team to capture non-standardised SOF data, turning SOFs into digital assets rather than static reference points. This was the birth of PortLog and the beginning of estimating time in port.

Today, PortLog has evolved into a check-before-fixing toolbox covering time in terminal, port costs, restrictions and tacit knowledge capture.

Why is Marcura ideally placed to solve the unpaid time-in-port problem?

Access to millions of data points contained in digitised Statements of Facts (SOFs)

PortLog leverages DA-Desk’s port call infrastructure to collect, standardise and digitalise hundreds of thousands of SOFs, covering thousands of terminals worldwide.

Our experience

Marcura has over 20 years’ experience of working with maritime data, digitisation and digitalisation, delivering process efficiency and actionable insights to our customers worldwide

PortLog is software and service

Like other Marcura solutions, PortLog combines software and services into powerful solutions focused on improving customer outcomes.

What does that mean?

The software element combines PortLog’s unique and anonymized SOF – derived benchmark data with refined AIS-, weather- and restriction information.

PortLog is a one-stop shop for shipping professionals to estimate, plan, manage and reduce unpaid terminal time.

In addition, the PortLog team works with each customer to ensure they succeed with:

  • Custom implementation of solutions for chartering/trading teams and commercial operations teams
  • Powerful analysis of customer-specific data to motivate usage and set targeted KPI’s
  • Deriving understanding and insights from customer’s own port calls

Next up – PortLog’s innovative future phases

PortLog has been serving customers for 6 years, but SOF-derived insights and decision support is only the beginning of the PortLog journey.

The latest PortLog developments include:

  • Simulate unpaid time in port with PortLog’s Terminal Risk Manager
  • Integration with IMOS (VIP)
  • Further improvement to port cost estimations

REQUEST YOUR DEMO OR ASK ME A QUESTION

Emma Wilson

Hi

My name is Emma Wilson, I’m the SVP Customer Success and Growth here at PortLog.

If you’d like an initial chat with me or a demo then please complete the form below.

Your enquiries all come to me personally.

Many thanks
Emma

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PortLog

About

PortLog is a business unit under The Marcura Group and an affiliate of DA-Desk, the world’s largest independent port cost management company. With the customer's time-in-port value at the center of our business, we deliver highly focused maritime services that improve efficiency, increase transparency and facilitate trade.

PortLog is developed and managed by industry specialists with decades of accumulated knowledge and a true passion for delivering automated, digital solutions for the maritime industry.

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