Americas News
Vertex Aims to Grow Alternative Bunker Business
U.S. distressed hydrocarbon processor Vertex Energy, Inc. (Vertex) Thursday said it is eyeing the alternative fuel bunker markets as a route to growth.
"We are very encouraged as we continue to move forward on the marine fuel opportunity," said Vertex CEO, Ben Cowart.
Vertex supplies fuel oil cutter stock for residual fuel blending, and is also understood to have developed an ultra low sulfur marine fuel for use by ships complying with Emissions Control Area (ECA) rules.
Low prices for traditional lower sulfur bunkers have dampened demand from the shipping industry for lesser known alternatives, but this should be a temporary situation, said Cowart.
"With the sharp decline in oil prices, it left the ship owners with very low fuel costs for the fuels that they could buy from the major refineries, so there has been no sense of urgency on the industry's part to adopt alternative fuel solutions like we can provide."
"Now, all that has done has slowed the adoption rate down but we continue to grow and penetrate that market on a month-by-month basis with our fuel product and we see that continuing over this year and into next year."
Cowart made the comments on the company's fourth quarter (Q4) earnings call, where he added that the group's overall performance had been hit by the steep decline in oil prices.
In particular he commented that the price slide had meant Vertex had purchased feedstock at a relatively high price compared to what it could sell its products for due to the time lag between purchasing feedstock and its products being ready for sale.
Nonetheless, he said Vertex had increased total sales volumes across all sectors in 2014 by 65 percent year-on-year.
