COMPETENCE AND EXPERIENCE

HARPER PETERSEN provides a comprehensive and wide variety of shipbroking services to the maritime industry with its main focus on the container shipping market.

Locations

Our headquarter is in Hamburg and our other locations include Singapore, Shanghai and the Netherlands.

Fleet

You can view our complete fleet list

Careers

Come and join us- we are always looking for new colleagues

WHAT WE DO

HARPER PETERSEN offers a wide range of shipbroking and commercial chartering services of container vessels of all different sizes. We are located in Hamburg, Germany, with branch offices in Shanghai, The Netherlands and Singapore.

HARPER PETERSEN was founded in 1943 in the UK, and in the 1980's went on to become one of the leading chartering agents for P & O Containers, Nedlloyd, Safmarine, United Arab Shipping, CSAV, CP Ships group, Crowley and Harrisons.

In 2003 Hamburg based ER Schifffahrt and Rickmers Reederei became joint shareholders of HARPER PETERSEN and assumed full ownership in 2004.

In September 2004 a subsidiary company, Eight Dragons Ship Brokers Ltd, was founded in Hong Kong together with a representative office in Shanghai in order to expand business in Asia. This company was renamed Harper Petersen & Co. (Asia) Ltd. in August 2007 in order to give a common brand to our business activities worldwide.

CONTCHART was founded in 2012 by Thien & Heyenga. In autumn 2012, MPC Münchmeyer Petersen Steamship, Ahrenkiel Shipmanagement and GB Shipping & Chartering became new partners of the joint venture.

In 2015 HARPER PETERSEN started a bulk desk with the focus to look exclusively after the bulk carriers of its shareholders and in 2016 the company expanded its business activities in Asia by establishing Harper Petersen & Co. Pte. Ltd., Singapore.

In 2016 CONTCHART became a fully owned subsidiary of MPC Capital. End of 2018 CONTCHART opened branch offices in the Netherlands and Singapore.

In 2018, HARPER PETERSEN was sold to Bremen-based Zeaborn Group, which in 2019 joined forces with MPC Capital, merging their activities in shipbroking, chartering and commercial management in a newly found joint venture and under the traditional shipbroker brand HARPER PETERSEN.

In 2023, the MPC Group acquired all remaining shares of Harper Petersen & Co. from Zeaborn, converting Harper Petersen & Co. into a 100% MPC-owned subsidiary.

In 2024, the MPC Group added the tank, bulk and sale & purchase activities of Albis Shipping to Harper Petersen, thereby forming a very diversified broking house.

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Vessels

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Employees

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Fixtures in 2020

Philosophy

HOW WE WORK

The joint venture between CONTCHART and HARPER PETERSEN was formed to gain a wider commercial presence in the fast changing and challenging world of today’s shipping industry. By bringing together the competence and experience of the Zeaborn and MPC groups and their dedicated staff, HARPER PETERSEN was able to strengthen its global market presence and to further enhance the efficiency of its working processes. The diverse fleet of vessels represented enables HARPER PETERSEN to offer its clients a quality-oriented, personalized and independent service. It is our vision to be your first class partner with a deep market insight and an overall coverage who conducts a close personal and reliable network within the maritime industry.

Vision
HARPER PETERSEN – a leading partner in shipbroking services and commercial vessel management providing opportunities in worldwide maritime trade.

Mission
Through understanding our customers’ business & a differentiated approach we deliver personal, reliable, efficient & flexible quality services.

Service

THE HARPEX

The HARPEX (HARPER PETERSEN Charter Rates Index) is published by HARPER PETERSEN and reflects the worldwide price development on the charter market for container ships. The HARPEX was originally developed in 2004 data accumulated since 2001, adjusted in 2011 and 2017 in response to clients and users. The Charter Rates are assessed weekly for 6-12 months fixture periods on the basis of actual weekly fixtures reported and our own market assessment.

	HARPEX	Vessel Size in TEU - Rates in US$
	Index	700	1100	1700	1800	2500	2700	3500	4250	6500	8500
27-Dec-2024	2,049	9,250	14,500	22,250	27,500	31,000	33,500	41,000	52,000	64,000	74,000
20-Dec-2024	2,049	9,250	14,500	22,250	27,500	31,000	33,500	41,000	52,000	64,000	74,000
13-Dec-2024	2,045	9,250	14,500	22,250	27,250	30,500	33,500	41,000	52,000	64,000	74,000
06-Dec-2024	2,043	9,250	14,500	22,000	27,000	30,500	33,500	41,000	52,000	64,000	74,000

The full HARPEX Series is available by subscription. For further information, please contact us under: research@harperpetersen.com

Our HARPEX index was developed in 2004 with data accumulated since 2001. In 2011 and again in 2017 the HARPEX was adjusted to correctly reflect the current container charter market. While the adjustment in 2011 involved a shift in methodology from a stochastic model to a panel poll-based assessment, the change in 2017 incorporated two new ship classes.

Harper Petersen provides the index for each calendar week based on rate assessments for nine classes of ships. The assessments assume 6-12-Months charter periods and are based on actual weekly fixture reports of the container market as well as Haper Petersen’s own market assessment. The published charter rate levels are in US Dollars for the following size / specification of container ships.

700 teu gearless	abt 700 teu	abt 400@14t	abt 8400 dwt	abt 100 reefer	abt 17kn
1100 teu geared	abt 1100 teu	abt 700@14t	abt 14000 dwt	abt 200 reefer	abt 19kn
1700 teu geared	abt 1700 teu	abt 1300@14t	abt 23000 dwt	abt 300 reefer	abt 20kn
1800 teu geared	abt 1800 teu	abt 1300@14t	abt 23000 dwt	abt 300 reefer	abt 18kn
2500 teu geared	abt 2500 teu	abt 1850@14t	abt 34000 dwt	abt 300 reefer	abt 22kn
2700 teu gearless	abt 2700 teu	abt 2100@14t	abt 37000 dwt	abt 300 reefer	abt 22kn
3500 teu gearless	abt 3500 teu	abt 2400@14t	abt 42000 dwt	abt 300 reefer	abt 22kn
4250 teu gearless	abt 4250 teu	abt 2800@14t	abt 50000 dwt	abt 400 reefer	abt 23kn
6500 teu gearless	abt 6500 teu	abt 4900@14t	abt 82000 dwt	abt 500 reefer	abt 24kn
8500 teu gearless	abt 8500 teu	abt 6350@14t	abt 100000 dwt	abt 700 reefer	abt 25kn

The HARPEX in combination with published rates is a powerful research tool for our clients , providing them with following possibilities:

Tracking the actual time charter rates for a particular size of ship over various periods.
Comparing market fluctuations in different ship sizes to determine correlations over certain periods.
Tracking of actual time charter rates for various sizes of ships as well as portraying their respective moving averages.

HARPEX is used by Refinitiv (ex Reuters), Macrobond and Haver as well as various analysts as market reference. Moreover, the HARPEX can be found in publications by the FED of Dallas, the OECD, and EUROSTAT.

If you have any questions about our HARPEX index or the data used, please do not hesitate to contact us at researchnoSpam@harperpetersen.com.

Service

WE CUSTOMIZE FOR OUR CLIENTS

Our services include chartering, operations, accounting, and future fuels & compliance. All these services are especially customized for our clients.

CHARTERING

Chartering is responsible for maintaining and advancing good working relationship with all market participants such as owners, charterers and brokers, identifying market trends and opportunities, aligning ships and suitable requirements on the charter market, negotiating and concluding the charter contracts after a thorough market research and analysis, marketing the fleet and securing best possible fleet employment under both short and long-term contracts.

OPERATIONS

Operations is responsible for the day-to-day operational business: maintaining the communication between Owners & Charterers during and after any charter, instructions to vessel's command related to employment, coordination of delivery & re-delivery from charterers, the coordination of vessel repair/ maintenance with charterers and technical managers, the phase out/in before and after off-hire with charterers and the handling of claims, casualty coordination, complaints and disputes (e.g. vessel performance).

MARINE ACCOUNTING

Marine accounting is responsible for all accounting matters in relation to a charter party: Invoicing of hire and further services to the charterers in the name of the owner according to the underlying charter party terms. The service includes issuance and posting of hire statements, bunker settlements and charterers' expenses, monitoring of incoming payments and dunning process as well as the registration and posting of owners expenses.

FUTURE FUELS AND COMPLIANCE

Future Fuels & Compliance is responsible for supporting our customers on the decarbonisation of their vessel operations. The groupwide Marine Decarbonisation Team develops solutions for lowering a vessels carbon footprint in order to comply with regulations or even to be able to offer advanced services by means of green transport capacity. We follow a holistic approach considering efficiency improvements, choice of fuel with its impact on emissions and continuously engage with relevant stakeholders.

Fleet

WE MANAGE A BROAD FLEET

The fleet list of HARPER PETERSEN comprises all container ships and their detailed specifications.

FLEETLIST

WORK WITH PROFESSIONALS

Each member of our team is an expert in his or her field and together we make sure that our customers get the best service. Contact our experts directly, we are happy to support.