Association

Governance

The Sea Cargo Charter Association is the governing body of the Sea Cargo Charter whose object is the management, administration and development of the Sea Cargo Charter. Signatories to the Sea Cargo Charter automatically become members of the Sea Cargo Charter Association.

The Sea Cargo Charter Association is governed by a set of Governance Rules which provide guidance to existing and prospective signatories on the processes for the management, administration and development of the Sea Cargo Charter.

The Steering Committee coordinates the Association and Sea Cargo Charter on behalf of its members. The 16 members of the Steering Committee (as of April 2025) are:

  • ADM — Patrick Heise, Group Manager Portfolio Management Global Ocean Freight
  • Anglo American — Peter Lye, Director and Head of Shipping, and Raghav Gulati, Safety, Sustainability and Technical Operations Manager
  • Bunge — Marcio Valentim Moura, Global Logistics Director
  • Cargill Ocean Transportation — Eman Abdalla, Vice President Global Operations and Supply Chain Lead (Chair)
  • Chevron — Matt Turns, General Manager for Strategy & Business Performance
  • Copenhagen Commercial Platform – Christian Bonfils, Chief Executive Officer & Founder
  • Dow — Jürgen Willemsen, Bulk Marine & Terminals Mode Leader, and Lance Nunez, Global Marine and Terminal Logistics Director
  • Emirates Global Aluminium — Abdessadek Karimi, Senior Director Logistics
  • Equinor — Heidi Aakre, Vice President Shipping and Jed Belgaroui, Advisor Maritime Decarbonisation
  • Klaveness Combination Carriers — Engebret Dahm, Chief Executive Officer (Vice Chair) and Peter Rayers, Head of Decarbonisation
  • Louis Dreyfus Company — Seb Landerretche, Global Head of Freight, and Fabian Kowatsch, Shipping decarbonisation lead
  • Maersk Tankers — Nishant Verma, Senior Naval Architect, and Kartik Kathavate, Head of Fuel Optimisation (Treasurer)
  • Norden — Henrik Røjel, Head of Fuel Efficiency and Decarbonisation, and Atul Kumar, Decarbonisation Manager
  • Shell — Justine Clark, Shipping Consultancy Manager, and Matthew Pun, Commercial Shipping Advisory
  • TotalEnergies — Sebastien Roche, Head of Shipping Technical Department, and Viviane Philippe, Marine Project Engineer
  • Trafigura Maritime Logistics — Rasmus Bach Nielsen, Global Head Fuel Decarbonisation

The Governance Rules detail the scope of the roles of the Steering Committee and Chair and how representatives are nominated and appointed.

The Secretariat maintains the day-to-day functions of the Association and is the first point of contact for existing and prospective signatories. The Secretariat is provided by the Global Maritime Forum through a service agreement.

The technical expertise needed for the Principles to remain updated and accurate is provided by Smart Freight Centre and UMAS and may include other organisations in the future as and when needed.