EMEA News
Russian Far East "Probably the World's Fastest Growing Bunker Market"
The Russian Far East is probably the world's fastest growing bunker market thanks to prices that are much lower than in other areas, Peter Grunwaldt, CEO of the newly formed Soyuz Bunkering Group (SBG) told industry news site ShippingWatch.
"The price of bunker in this region is so attractive that the large container ships often sail the extra distance to fill their tanks," he said.
"This region is of course interesting to us, and we might have a competitive edge here, because we have our own physical outlet and our own Russian trading desk."
SBG is part of Russia's Summa group, which also operates in oil trading through Souz Petrolium and owns part of Fesco, a shipping company that operates between North America and the Russian Far East.
Grunwaldt said ship owners can sometimes get a discount of $75 or more per metric tonne (pmt) on bunkers in the Far East compared with Singapore.
"Trampers have traditionally been more flexible on where to pick up their bunker, but now we see major container carriers changing their trade lanes to accommodate the bunker arbitrage, not only in the Russian Far East region, but all over the world," Grunwaldt said.
"Something that didn't happen 6-8 years ago where owners and charterers didn't have the same focus on their bunker consumption."
After launching its global operations, SBG told Ship & Bunker last month that being part of Summa gives it a greater geographic scope than most bunker companies.
