Features: - Tanker Operator

INDUSTRY - BUNKERS
Increase in high seas
bunkering seen
If we’re truthful no one particularly
likes change. We think we should,
because consultants and ‘modernists’
tell us to ‘embrace’ it. The reality is
that change is driven, in the main, by
necessity; an increase in competition,
organisational transformation, a financial
crisis like we have recently witnessed, or the
evolution of technology that redefines
operations and services. And ironically,
while scepticism is always the primary
emotion, acceptance, belief and conviction
always seem to follow.*
Within in the shipping industry, the past 12
months have all been about change. While
the financial crisis has expedited
consolidation, it has also significantly
increased competition and intensified the
pressure from customers to transport goods
faster and cheaper. In response, shipowners
and operators have been forced to scrutinise
every element of their organisational
infrastructure and methods of operation to
identify ways of improving services,
increasing efficiencies and reducing costs.
One area that has been embraced,
particularly by tanker operators, is the
methods of purchasing bunker fuel.
Accounting for over 50% of a vessel’s
overall operating costs, managing bunker
fuel procurement is a full time responsibility
and a key part of the overall profitability of
an organisation. It is interesting that in the
past year, many operators, as well as
How a change in bunker
delivery is fuelling
performance improvement
and reducing costs.
OW Icebunker md Per Funch-Nielsen.
implementing effective hedging and risk
management strategies to manage price
volatility have also looked at the actual
physical method of purchase as another
means of increasing efficiencies. This has
resulted in a significant increase in high seas
bunkering activity in 2009.
For many years, high seas bunkering has
been a service traditionally associated with
the global fishing fleets, where trawlers, in
an industry continually faced with dwindling
resources and increased legislation, need all
the time they can get to maximise their
catches. Coming into port is simply not
an option.
It is a trend, which is now starting to be
utilised by other facets within the industry.
OW Icebunker, part of the OW Bunker
group, has seen a significant increase in its
customer base over the past year, which now
includes tankers, container vessels, bulk
carriers and reefers.
The company is in the process of deploying
another vessel to the Pacific Ocean to meet
the increase in demand and to support the
barge Otilia, which is already in operation in
the region. Central to providing a quality high
seas bunkering service, the vessels are doublehulled,
with fast pumping rates of 600 cu m
per hour ensuring a quick supply of fuel oil,
and can provide all grades of quality IFO
products up to 380 cst, as well as MGO DMA.
The one common denominator for this
change is that all of the new customers have
been motivated by the significant efficiency
and cost savings that can be generated, as well
as the real developments that have been made
in high seas bunkering services over the past
few years.
For a start, deviating from a route can save
days in time that would otherwise be spent
November/December 2009 TANKEROperator 21