StormGeo: ‘We want to get everyone looking at the shipping universe from the same perspective’

StormGeo, a Bergen-based weather intelligence provider, has plans to establish a shared platform with ports, ships, shippers all sharing the same tools to optimise their operations.

Søren Andersen joined StormGeo as CEO in 2019 having worked for many famous names in shipowning in his career including more than a decade at Maersk.

Founded in 1997 as a weather forecasting service, StormGeo sees innovation as the way to help the shipping industry to reduce fuel and emissions and keep people safe. The company analyses weather data to help clients make the best business decisions.

“We are seeing our customers optimise data using our s-Insight dashboard. The dashboard can have two data streams, one with actual routing data, and the second has vessel technical performance data. They can look at the data separately, but taking this data together gives our customers the ability to link technical investments to commercial gains, and thus make much better commercial decisions,” says Andersen.

According to Andersen, weather routing could help achieve savings ranging from three to 10%.

Andersen reckons the industry can still gain huge efficiencies by using the technologies and processes that have been developed in the past decade as many innovations are still not implemented widely to any large degree.

“This has a lot to do with the boom and bust nature of shipping. In tough economic times, innovation is put on the back burner. But the industry is also quite conservative, and sometimes a bit shortsighted,” Andersen says.

“Technology is always ahead of regulations, but we have to use it if we want to stay ahead of regulatory pressure. The industry leaders are doing that, but not everyone. Some companies may be slow to invest in new technologies, but I don’t believe it will be possible to survive as an inefficient shipping company today,” Andersen reckons.

StormGeo will be launching its first s-Suite solution next month, offering actionable information between the ship and shore to allow vessel operators and fleet managers to make quick and sound decisions on the commercial and technical performance of their vessels.

“Achieving a shared platform in five years’ time is our goal, with ports, ships, shippers are all sharing the same tools,” Andersen says.

“It’s a short time frame, but we want to get everyone looking at the shipping universe from the same perspective as soon as possible. That is our vision, and our dream. It will happen, it’s just a matter of time,” Andersen concludes.