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Business Lines

Freight

Highlights

Supporting LDC’s global merchandizing activities, our Freight Platform has grown to become a globally significant chartering entity in the dry bulk market.

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250 Vessels

Our chartered fleet consists of 250 vessels across the globe, both for our own business and for third-party customers.

Upgrading Fleet

Integrating Tier III (NOx emission control) vessels and strengthening our edge with state-of-the art shipping engineering solutions.

Digital Capabilities

Increasingly enhancing digital capabilities throughout our freight business, from strategic decision-making to execution.

Fuel Efficiency

Optimizing fuel efficiency through focus on newer vessel designs and exploring cutting-edge engineering solutions for reduced emissions.

About Freight

Our dedicated Freight team operates from offices in the US, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Singapore.

As a major vessel operator with comprehensive risk management and global commercial presence, our Freight Platform supports the growth of LDC’s other businesses while offering a wide range of services to external clients and partners.

Traditionally focused on agricultural trades, today almost half of our chartering activities support diverse third-party customers, including major global miners, steel mills, utilities and other industrial companies.

Our Strengths

Our long journey through volatile shipping cycles has enriched our experience and strong performance record, and our vision for a sustainable future guides our model for continuous improvement to deliver on our long term commitments.

LDC maintains the highest standards in maritime trade, and is recognized industry-wide as a reliable long-term partner.

We abide by strict chartering, compliance and vetting policies to charter safe and efficient vessels. In 2021, working alongside like-minded maritime industry players, we helped develop and launch a seafarers’ Code of Conduct, a tool to help ensure responsible shipping operations.

Focus on Innovation

A transformative mindset is an essential driver for our team in the pursuit of efficient and sustainable operations through two overlapping innovation efforts:

  • We collaborate with top-tier ship owners, shipyards, equipment makers and weather routing companies to optimize our fleet performance;
  • As the shipping industry transitions toward greater digitization, we continue to build up our satellite tracking experience and collaborate on new integrated data innovations to stay at the cutting-edge of this ongoing revolution.

Committed to Sustainable Shipping

As responsible freight operators, we fully support the International Maritime Organization’s environmental protection regulations, particularly with regards to ballast water treatment as well emissions reductions, such as SOx and other greenhouse gases.

We continue to seek sustainable and innovative design solutions to the necessary gradual decarbonization of maritime freight, working in partnership with international industry bodies, shipyards and ship owners, as Partner of the Global Maritime Forum.

To this end, in 2021 we signed the Global Maritime Forum’s global call to action for shipping decarbonization by 2050, and we commissioned an independent study on performance evaluation of four wind-assisted ship propulsion technologies. In the same year, we assembled a dedicated team of specialists tasked with exploring all aspects of decarbonization in relation to ocean transportation.

In 2019 we continued to study the feasibility of carbon-reducing technologies and efficiency designs, such as wind propulsion or LNG dual fuel. We also took part in an SSI working group studying avenues for the use of biofuels in shipping.

Further to this, in 2022 we successfully completed our first bio-fuel trial on the first carbon neutral juice shipment, carried out in collaboration with Wisby Tanker AB, Sweden (Wisby Tanker) on one of LDC’s upgraded Juice vessels, MV Essayra, and delivered our first independently verified Sea Cargo Charter emissions report.

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