A new commercial operator of bulkers is launching in Copenhagen that marks big changes at BW Dry, the bulker-owning arm of Singapore's BW Group.
Copenhagen Commercial Platform (CCP) launched on 1 April and aims to connect shipowners with charterers that are both looking to improve their environmental footprint.
Christian Bonfils, who has been BW Dry's managing director for the past five years, is heading up the new platform and will take the company's seven staff with him.
The idea for CCP came about as BW Dry looked for ways to develop its business, Bonfils told TradeWinds.
The company was seeing increased demand from charterers for "greener" transport of their commodities, he said, while shipowners have been scrambling to adapt to this need.
"With this new platform, we believe that we can connect both," Bonfils said.
"We can give these charterers the service they want and, at the same time, we can help owners to adapt to charterers' mindset and also adapt to charterers' new needs around emissions."
Backing for the new platform comes from BW Group via its BW Investment arm and Weco Shipping, a Danish owner that has invested in the platform.
"We wanted to bring someone in to highlight the independence of the platform," Bonfils said of the partnership with Weco.
"BW will be a customer and investor, Weco will be an investor. Weco is already involved in dry cargo, but as an operator, so I think these two businesses complement each other quite well. We will not compete with Weco, but they see this [platform] as an investment."
Declaring independence
CCP will focus on demonstrating each vessel’s environmental metrics, aiming to help shipowners to improve their performance and to assist charterers in finding more environmentally friendly vessels.
Vessels managed by CCP are vetted for and rated by efficiency and emissions metrics.
Decarbonisation just calls for transparency and collaboration between charterers and owners," Bonfils said.
It is this need for a new level of transparency between charterers and owners that led to CCP being established as a separate, independent entity to BW Dry, Bonfils said.
"The platform idea is very transparent. We don't have the same limitation that you have in a traditional pool — where you have to pay upfront working capital and have a long termination period — so we would like to take the best of both worlds," he explained.
"That's why we realised quite early in this space, this has to be an independent platform."
BW Dry will enter its six bulkers into the platform plus the four kamsarmaxes it owns through its BW Maru joint venture with Marubeni.
CCP aims to have 100 vessels on its platform over the next two years, Bonfils said.
BW Dry will continue as a tonnage provider, but asset management will be handled from BW Group's base in Singapore, Bonfils said.
"For the employees here [in Copenhagen], they will basically do what they did before just under a new name and new entity," he said.
"But the daily operations will remain the same, a high level of service and now with the addition of ESG [environment, social and governance] focus. The biggest difference is that we will now look for third parties to join the platform."
As well as getting to its targeted 100 vessels, Bonfils said CCP has a point to make in the market.
"What we want to highlight is the impact on emissions. We want to give charterers the foundation for a greener choice," he said.
Big backers
Johan Wedell-Wedellsborg, chairman of Weco Group, said he was "delighted to invest in a young, passionate and innovative team that has already created new standards in the dry cargo segment".
"A good investment is about matching the right idea with the right people, and that is exactly what we see in Copenhagen Commercial Platform," he said.
Andreas Sohmen-Pao, chairman of BW Group, said the group is "pleased to support their ambition to manage vessels beyond BW’s fleet, and to provide a dry bulk platform embracing a more environmental focus".
CCP is the second new venture that Bonfils has launched in less than two months.
Miros Mocean, a BW Group-backed joint venture with tech company Miros, launched a vessel performance-monitoring platform in early March.
Bonfils said entrants to the CCP platform will have the option to use the Miros Mocean system, but it will not be forced upon them.
Copenhagen Commercial Platform is the brainchild of Christian Bonfils, 42, who has founded a number of dry cargo companies over his 20-year career in shipping.
"I do think that I am an entrepreneur at heart and I think it's interesting to innovate," Bonfils told TradeWinds. "In my five years with BW, they saw the same and they let me do it."
The platform is the next step in Bonfils' career, after having served as BW Dry's managing director since 2016.
Before that, he founded or co-founded bulker operators First Arctic, Custodia Shipping and Nordic Bulk Carriers, which pioneered commercial shipping in the Arctic's Northern Sea Route.
He is also chairman of Miros Mocean, the BW Group-backed joint venture that launched a vessel performance-monitoring platform in early March. It was Bonfils who originated the relationship with Miros, the company with whom BW is partnering.
He was also instrumental in setting up BW Group's joint venture with Marubeni, BW Maru, in 2017.
"I'm driven by creating but also innovating," Bonfils said. "Nordic Bulk Carriers was also innovating, sailing the first ship through the Northern Sea Route.
"That is the driving factor and then I'm just very pleased that on this journey we have strong partners behind us and they can see the benefits in the concept and in my strong team."
Bonfils also represents BW as a board member in Corvus Energy, which develops batteries for the maritime industry and is co-owned by Equinor, Shell and Hydro.
