Asia/Pacific News
Traders: Singapore Mass Flow Meters Will Create Two-Tier Bunker Market
Traders say prices for bunker fuel in Singapore could widen into a two-tier market as the deadline for adopting mass flow meters (MFMs) at the start of 2017 approaches, Platts reports.
According to the report, market prices now vary by $5 to $10 per metric tonne (pmt) depending on credit statuses and other conditions, but that range could "widen to $20 per metric tonne (pmt) or even $50 pmt," one source said, with higher prices for bunkers sold using mass flow meter quantity readings.
The market will unify again after the use of the meters becomes universal at the start of 2017, the sources said.
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) announced in April that from January 1, 2017 it will be mandatory to use an MPA approved mass flow metering system for Marine Fuel Oil (MFO) bunkering in Singapore, although 13 of the 63 players currently listed on the MPA's Licenced Bunker Supplier Information Sheet are already using the technology.
Of those, four suppliers have a MFM system approved by the MPA.
In May, Iain White, field marketing manager at ExxonMobil Marine Fuels & Lubricants, the first company to use an MPA approved MFM system during a commercial bunker delivery at the port, said customer demand was behind a recent doubling of its mass flow meter capability in Singapore.
At the time, White told Ship & Bunker he didn't see MFMs having any impact on cost, and that it "should be beneficial all round, with no down side at all."
Seah Khen Hee, chairman of the Singapore Standards Council technical committee for bunkering, said Friday that shipowners' preferences will determine whether the industry will shift to mass flow meters.
