In volatile freight markets, charterers face constant uncertainty. Freight rates move daily, port congestion varies by region, and demurrage still represents one of the hardest costs to forecast. In a recent episode of the Teqplay Vodcast, Voyager Portal’s CEO Matthew Costello and CTO Matthew Eric Bassett joined Teqplay’s CEO Léon Gommans to discuss how data and AI are beginning to reshape this landscape.
Here are four insights that stood out from the conversation.
1. Demurrage is the riskiest line on the P&L
Unlike freight, which is priced in advance, demurrage claims materialize after a voyage is complete. That lag makes it an exposure that charterers can neither hedge nor fully predict.
As Bassett observed:
“Demurrage is probably the riskiest thing. That’s going to be your hardest thing to predict. You’re not really going to see the claim until well after the trade is executed. If you’re trying to help people manage the risk and optimize their costs, this is the biggest thing to start with.”
The implication is that demurrage deserves more than reactive handling. It must be treated as a priority risk category in any trading or shipping strategy.
For charterers, the lesson is operational as much as financial. Treating demurrage as a strategic risk means building processes that track exposure in real time, not just at the end of the voyage. It also requires integrating demurrage analysis into contract negotiations, voyage planning, and partner selection. In this sense, demurrage shifts from being an afterthought to one of the most important metrics driving day-to-day decision-making.
2. Contract simulation can be a powerful negotiation tool
Automation makes claims processing faster, but the real breakthrough lies in contract simulation. By digitizing laytime clauses, demurrage calculations can be executed like code, allowing charterers to test “what if” scenarios against historical voyages.
As Bassett explained:
“We’re digitizing these contracts… turning them almost into an executable program so that we can execute a contract against the statement of facts and give you that demurrage calculation very quickly. You can look at all your claims over the past 12 months and start asking: what happens if I change this clause? What would my costs have been? That ability to run live simulations gives you the power to renegotiate smarter.”
This capability shifts demurrage from compliance to strategy. For charterers and traders, it means moving beyond settling past claims toward designing smarter contracts for the future.
The practical impact is significant. A trading desk can compare how different weathering clauses would have changed exposure over the last year, or how pilotage delays at a specific port alter the economics of a deal. Instead of relying on generic benchmarks or gut instinct, charterers can negotiate terms with evidence drawn from their own operational history. That reframing, from claims management to contract optimization, could alter the balance of power in negotiations.
3. Maritime can leapfrog into AI without waiting for standards
Where other industries spent decades digitizing and standardizing, maritime’s fragmented processes might seem like a barrier. Yet Bassett argued this is precisely why AI offers a shortcut.
“If we were doing this 12 years ago, we’d think we need five or ten years just to standardize all these documents, get everyone aligned, and build common databases. But with large language models, we can leapfrog that whole process. We can skip the decades of digitization and go straight to extraction.”
Large language models can structure disparate SOFs and protest letters without waiting for global alignment. For charterers, that means insights are available sooner than expected.
The analogy is telling: Bassett compared maritime’s situation to developing countries that skipped traditional infrastructure build-outs and went straight to mobile networks. Shipping, he suggested, can bypass years of slow consensus-building and leap directly into advanced data extraction. That may not solve every interoperability challenge, but it does unlock immediate value from the documents charterers already handle every day. In effect, AI is compressing the industry’s digital learning curve.
4. Data transparency changes relationships as much as processes
Collaboration in a port call can involve more than 20 stakeholders, often with competing incentives. Without data, inefficiencies go unchallenged. With data, those same inefficiencies become visible and actionable.
Costello gave one example where delays caused by surveyors disappeared once the facts were put on the table.
“We were working with a client who had an issue with surveyors at a particular port. They were taking a very long time because they had to travel from far away, and all of this was impacting demurrage. The surveyors themselves had no concept of the knock-on effect; until we showed them the data. Once both parties could see it, the process went from delaying the ship by one to two hours per voyage to almost zero unintended delays. It only changed because the information was shared.”
The point is larger than surveyors. Transparency shifts conversations from finger-pointing to measurable accountability. Some parties may resist change, but when the evidence is shared, “it’s very hard to argue against the need for change,” as Costello noted.
For charterers, this underscores the value of bringing counterparties into the same information loop. When a surveyor, port agent, or service provider sees the direct cost impact of their actions, resistance to change weakens. Transparency does not guarantee alignment of incentives, but it makes inefficiencies impossible to deny. Over time, this creates pressure for better performance and can reduce unnecessary disputes. Data, in other words, becomes both a management tool and a diplomatic instrument.
Looking Ahead
Taken together, these insights point to a future where charterers operate less reactively and more proactively. Systems that once looked backward are evolving into continuous monitors of operational and contractual risk.
As Costello concluded:
“The industry talks a lot about being proactive, but most systems today are still backward-looking. What’s changing now is that these technologies will be monitoring things 24/7 in the background and surfacing suggestions, recommendations, and trends you might not have noticed yourself. The industry as a whole is going to get far more proactive and prescriptive; not just in demurrage, but across all chartering operations.”
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