Western Bulk joins Oceanbolt online data platform

Norwegian dry bulk specialist Western Bulk has signed up with Oceanbolt, an Oslo-based tech startup, in an effort to leverage real-time insights into the dry bulk market.

Oceanbolt is an online market intelligence platform for the dry bulk industry that provides real-time insights into trade flows, tonnage flow, fleet speed, dry docking and congestion.

As explained, the insights available in the platform are based on analyzing the automatic identification system (AIS) data in real-time, and utilizing geospatial analytics algorithms in combination with a comprehensive polygon database.

“Western Bulk sees great potential in the context that such a system provides, and going forward aims to blend this real-time & historical data with our other data sources and proprietary systems to allow for greater market insight and knowledge for our Chartering, Operations, and Analytics teams,” the company said. 

“Oceanbolt’s primary focus on minor dry bulk, cloud-based systems with open APIs and combined with a shared desire to extract the full value of data in the shipping industry, made this a natural partner selection for us. We look forward to working closely with them going forward.”

“Western Bulk joins our platform as a data partner and will provide valuable domain expertise and data which will allow us to train and further improve the accuracy of our historical and predictive algorithms,” Oceanbolt noted.

“Western Bulk will leverage Oceanbolt’s Data API and web-based Analytics Dashboard to further strengthen the analytical efforts of their in-house data scientists and analysts and to aid the commercial and operational understanding of the chartering and operations teams.”

“The partnership commenced on 1 May 2020 and marks a milestone for Oceanbolt in our quest for participating to create a digital and data-driven shipping industry,” the maritime intelligence company added.