AI & Optimization for Chartering and Commercial Operations

About the Session

Capt. Bal Mukund Sharma, Vice President at Solverminds Solutions and Technologies, is a Master Mariner with over 35 years of experience across fleet operations, commercial operations, and strategic transformation. Having sailed as Captain on oil and gas tankers, he brings extensive expertise in chartering, time-charter business development, fuel optimization, ship-to-ship operations, and fleet integration.

Capt. Mohit Oberoi, Owner and Executive Director at Solverminds Solutions and Technologies, is a Master Mariner with over 30 years of maritime industry experience. As a specialist in AI- and machine learning-driven logistics platforms and mathematical optimization, he focuses on transforming fragmented voyage data into actionable decisions that improve shipping profitability and operational performance.

In their joint session, “The Hidden Cost of Chartering & Commercial Operations: Found by AI, Recovered by Optimization,” the speakers explore how AI and optimization can uncover hidden costs across chartering, voyage execution, laytime, claims, and voyage profitability. The session examines how fragmented information from reports, emails, port records, and spreadsheets can be connected to create a single auditable source of truth. It also highlights the use of predictive intelligence and AI-assisted document analysis to identify demurrage exposure, ETA risks, and time-bar events before they result in financial losses, moving commercial operations from record-keeping to predictive decision-making and cost recovery.