Case 5: Dorian LPG’s Rapid Fleet Growth: A Story of Maritime HR Planning and People Management

Abstract

It was another Friday evening at the office, when Dimitris was looking at the view of Piraeus port, thinking some words from the last meeting: “We need to do what needs to be done, in order to be fully compliant, over and above regulations, industry standards and principals’ requirements. Our commitment to compliance ‘by-the-book’ is our way of doing business, and money should be spent for this concept”. Dimitris is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Dorian LPG Management Corporation, the wholly owned subsidiary of Dorian LPG Ltd. Dorian is tasked with the technical management of the fleet owned by the parent company. Dimitris has been also a member of the shore technical management team since 2004, when the shipping company was a small one, with three owned ships on the water (plus two under management from other owners), manned with less than 80 seafarers and 17 people ashore. The Chairman and CEO John Hadjipateras, holding a long experience on tanker vessels management, had announced the new strategy of the company. He envisioned his 200-year-old family shipping company running in a niche market, that of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) carriers. LPG was considered one of the energy resources of the future, and at that time (2001), there were very few ships in the world, specialised to carry this dangerous, liquid commodity. The number of competitors in the LPG market was limited. Entry barriers were high, due to stringent regulations and industry standards. Clients were also few, and already known to the management team, as the same oil majors were chartering Dorian tanker vessels for decades. The option to buy second-hand ships was not even considered, as the characteristics of the existing fleet (in terms of ship age, capacity, technology) did not match to Dorian’s strategy which would focus on modern, fuel efficient ships with clear advantages over the existing ones.