Heritage

Viking Shipping is a shipping brokerage established in 1936 to focus on industrial end-users moving bulk and general cargo initially founded/supported by Norwegian Ship-Owner family Broevig handling the charter requirements of the in-house fleet, however in the 1970’s the Ship Owner sold off the majority of their fleet and the company ownership was taken over by the management and focused on working for Charterers of mainly industrial materials. The company focus has remained the same up to today with the company enjoying relations with customers that are several decades old. The company is still with an independent profile 100 percent owned by the managing partners who are all active in day-to-day chartering.

We handle a wide variety of commodities such as mineral sands/ores/aggregates (barites ore, titanium slag, ilmenite, rutile, zircon, feldspar, quartz, olivine, non-ferrous metal ores and concentrates, copper, nickel, zinc, alumina, bauxite, manganese, magnesium, gypsum and talc) and processed/semi finished materials (such as ingots, cathodes, proppants, steels).

Even though we focus on dry-cargo shipments, we do handle tanker requirements of drilling mud and base oils for customers in the oil field service industry.

Furthermore we handle other materials relating to the needs of various manufacturers i.e. specialty coal/coke for the ferroalloy industry, we handle “waste materials” for industrial recycling metal scrap for re-smelting as well as fly ash and slag (from copper, iron/steel, manganese production) for use in mainly the cement industry as filler, we ship cement clinker and cement and finally we have a number of clients in the agri-nutrient business i.e. grains for animal feed and human consumption as well as raw sugar, finally we ship a substantial volume of forestry products (logs/sawn timber/woodchips/pellets).

Whilst we refer to ourselves as a shipping brokerage then we do take some additional work on for our Clients rather than be a “middleman mailbox” i.e. depending on clients preferences we can handle everything from budgets have been made and accepted, i.e. we can handle the entire contract negotiation (we work on simple standard contracts which have been tried and tested, each adapted and tailor-made for individual clients’ trade to limit liability and avoid extra costs).

We liaise with cargo shippers (suppliers), ship owners, port agents, we can do the back office functions such as the voyage execution/operations and on completion take care of the laytime computation (one would be surprised how often money is left on the table by Charterers in that respect) and in the rare events of claims then we can handle claims and settlements as well.

We are not heavily involved in the shipping mainstream commodities of the world such as iron ore, crude oil and coal (other than niche market for the specialty types of coal/coke) – these trades are mainly controlled by traders where freight has become a profit center in itself with most Charterers having huge volumes and large teams to support their activity. We have less to offer in such transparent markets where futures/derivatives are making trading freight easier. Instead we prefer to work to find solutions for clients where we can add value and use our knowledge of trades and relationships, experience and expertise to help making cost structures more transparent and overall cut cost.– several of our customers are service or industrial manufacturing companies ranging from multinational corporations and everything in between down to small family owned enterprises for many where we act as the de facto shipping arm. Lastly we do various project cargoes worldwide (whether containerized or over/odd-sized equipment and structurals).