The Top 10 Bunker Companies for 2024 has been compiled by Ship & Bunker and represents who we believe are the 10 key global players for the year ahead in terms of bunker sales to the end users of marine fuel.

The Top 10 Bunker Companies for 2024

Click on the company name or scroll down to read the individual company profiles.

How We Picked the Top 10

Selecting just 10 companies from the vast array of players operating in the marine fuels supply space is always going to be a difficult task, and there will never be consensus on who those 10 should be. The reality is that the bunker fuel business involves many hundreds of entities at many hundreds of ports worldwide, representing a wide assortment of business structures and sizes.

There are also many different company types involved in the bunker ecosystem. These include:

  • State-controlled companies: E.g. Petrobras, Aramco, Lukoil, Cepsa, Petroperu, YPF, Chimbusco etc
  • Oil Majors: E.g. BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Total etc.
  • Oil independent: E.g. Phillips 66, Nustar, Valero etc.
  • Commodity Houses: E.g. Glencore, Vitol, Mercuria and Trafigura
  • International pure bunker traders: E.g. SingFuels
  • International hybrid bunker trader/physical suppliers: Peninsula Petroleum, Minerva, and Monjasa.
  • Small traders: Hundreds of these exist at ports worldwide.
  • Pure Brokers: E.g. NSI, Liberty Marine Fuels and Prime's Bunkers Plus
  • Hybrid Broker/traders (or vice versa): KPI OceanConnect, Glander International Bunkering and Dan Bunkering
  • Sales and marketing arms for Storage terminals: E.g. Nalex Energy’s arrangement with Vitol
  • Trading platforms: E.g. Clearlynx, AuctionConnect, and Inatech
  • Bunkering arms founded on the volumes from shipping companies: E.g. Maersk Oil Trading, Delta Energy and Chimbusco
  • Bunker Buying Alliances: E.g. Hafnia, DeaL Energy

Selection Criteria

Sales volume to end users of fuel is a top consideration for inclusion in the Top 10, but global reach and overall potential to impact the supply chain are among the other key variables we have considered. For example, some of the largest suppliers ranked by sales volume in Singapore have numbers that exceed some of those players selected in our Top 10. Yet they only operate in that single market, and historically when such a player departs its lost supply capacity is quickly replaced by other suppliers at the port so there is very little impact to the local market, and none globally.

Equally, there are intermediary entities that have volumes higher than some of those on this list, but the vast majority of their volume is never sold to the end user of the bunker fuel.

Thus, we have selected players that are not only significant in terms of supply volumes to end users, but those who also provide the logistics and other services that make the global bunker ecosystem tick.

We have also focused on companies for whom bunkers is THE, or at least A, major business, and their goal is to sell to multiple industry counterparties (E.g. not just the trading unit of single shipping company). This is also why we have discounted several oil majors and national oil companies who are clearly dominant players, but bunkers represent only a small fraction of their overall business.

Given the above, this list of Top 10 Bunker Companies should not be taken to be the absolute 10 largest bunker companies by sales volume.

An Important Note on Sales Volumes

The sales volumes in this list have been compiled using a combination of officially reported figures, and where that is not possible, best estimates based on available market intelligence. This report will be updated throughout the year whenever official information becomes available that supersedes best estimates.

This report was last updated on March 4, 2024

I Want Further Information, Who Can I Contact?

If you have questions or feedback about this Top 10 list, please contact Ship & Bunker here: shipandbunker.com/contact

Bunker Holding

Type: Hybrid: Bunker Trader / Physical Supplier / Broker
Annual Volume (2023): 25 million mt (traded, physical, broking).
HQ: Middlefart, Denmark
Website: www.bunker-holding.com

Company Profile

Bunker Holding A/S (BH) is a family-owned, private limited company incorporated in Denmark. It is owned by A/S United Shipping & Trading Co, which in turn is owned by the Ostergaard Family: Torben Ostergaard Nielsen and his daughters Nina Ostergaard Borris and Mia Ostergaard Rechnitzer. The company’s history dates back to 1876. BH is headed by CEO Keld Demant.

BH is by far the world’s largest bunker company in terms of volume sold to end users of fuel, with an annual sales volume in 2023 of around 25 million mt - down from around 30 million mt in 2022 and 2021.

That fuel is all sold via a network of individually branded bunker trading, broking and supply entities with 66 offices across 34 countries worldwide - although it has an operating presence in over 150 countries and availability at 1,764 ports worldwide.

As such, the structure of BH is unlike any other player in the bunker industry; a holding company for an amalgam of well-known global bunker brands such as Glander International Bunkering and Dan-Bunkering, all ostensibly operating independently and competing with each other for sales. These companies each have their own respective origins and histories.

BH’s most significant subsidiaries, all with global reach, are:

  • A/S Dan-Bunkering: a trader founded in 1981 and based at BH HQ in Middlefart.

  • Glander International Bunkering: founded in NYC in 1961 and later moved to Florida, Glander is a broker/trader now based in Dubai. Today’s Glander International Bunkering brand was formed in 2013 when Dubai-based International Bunkering acquired the US-based Glander International.

  • KPI OceanConnect: a hybrid broker/trader that until recently was known as KPI Bridge Oil before acquiring and merging with OceanConnect in 2020.

  • Bunker One: Bunker Holding’s physical supply unit launched in 2018.

The company has reaped the rewards of a rising crude market over the past two years, reporting pre-tax earnings of $222.7 million in the year to April 30, 2023, up from $103 million the year earlier and the highest result in Bunker Holding’s history.

After this record result, the firm had more modest ambitions for 2023, seeing a normalisation of the market emerging after previous turmoil, CEO Keld Demand told Ship & Bunker in June 2023.

The firm remains open to M&A opportunities, but an acquisition in the alternative fuels space would be more likely than one in conventional bunkers, Demant said.

At the start of 2023 BH units BMS United, Bunkernet and Sea Bunkering International announced they were merging as a new brand, Baseblue.

World Fuel Services

Type: Trader, some physical
Annual Volume (2023): 16.8 million mt
HQ: Miami, FL
Website: www.wfscorp.com

Company Profile

Miami-based World Fuel Services Corp (WFS) is a publicly-traded company incorporated in Florida, USA. It provides fuel-related logistics and services to the marine, land, and aviation industries. 

Originally founded in 1984, following its $219 million IPO in 2010, by 2013 WFS was the only Fortune 500 company to have grown faster than tech giant Apple over the previous decade.

For many years WFS was the world’s top bunker trading company, and as recently as 2016 had annual sales of over 31 million mt.

The company then made a conscious decision to move away from what it described as its ‘low margin, low return activity’ centered largely on its Asian business, which by 2020 resulted in volumes falling by 46.5% from 2015’s level to 17.5 million mt in 2020. It should be noted that WFS counts the cruise sector - including giants such as Carnival - among key customers, and the suspension of the cruise line business during the coronavirus pandemic has also had an impact on volumes at this time.

More recently the firm’s marine division has seen an uptick in both volumes and profits, while its decision to avoid lower value business has boosted gross margins.

For 2023 WFS saw annual volumes of around 16.8 million mt, down from the 19.1 million mt posted in 2022 and 18.4 million mt in 2021. Quarterly volumes in 2023 were 4.3 million mt, 4.2 million mt, 4.1 million mt and 4.3 million mt for the first, second, third and fourth quarters, respectively.

The majority of that volume is traded, with some broking as well as physical business in the UK, Gibraltar, and Tampa Bay.

WFS’s gross profit margin from marine sales had jumped significantly to record highs in 2022 as a result of the geopolitical turmoil’s effect on oil markets, and these margins declined sharply again in 2023 as the market normalised.

Taking 2023 as a whole, marine income sank by 47% to $82.3 million, marine gross profit dropped by 32.6% to $172.6 million and the marine gross margin fell by 40% to $4.87/mt.

The holding company of World Fuel Services is now referred to as World Kinect Corporation, but in the market the company is still known as World Fuel Services.

Minerva Bunkering

Type: Physical supplier and trader
Annual Volume (2023): 16.3 million mt
HQ: Geneva
Website: www.minervabunkering.com

Company Profile

Minerva Bunkering was established in 2014 and is the bunker supply and trading arm of the Geneva-based Mercuria Energy Group, one of the world’s largest trading houses. Minerva Bunkering is headed by Tyler Baron who is also based in Geneva.

With a true global presence covering 57 ports with physical operations, Minerva lists its key operational hubs as Geneva, Athens, New York, Singapore, Las Palmas, Panama and Rotterdam.

Having been originally established as a pure bunker trader, in 2019 Minerva notably bought Aegean Marine Petroleum Network, once the world’s largest independent physical bunker supplier. Since then, the company has enjoyed steady growth. For 2023 volumes are understood to be around 16.3 million mt, down marginally from the 16.5 million mt seen in 2022. Most (around 80%) of the company’s volumes are attributed to its physical business.

Among its numerous physical supply locations, the company enjoys a strong presence in Singapore where in 2023 it was ranked as the 12-largest player by volume, down three places from ninth in 2022.

The company expanded to Saudi Arabia in 2023, as well as adding operations in Egypt and Mauritius. It had withdrawn from physical supply at Los Angeles and Long Beach in early 2023.

The firm continues the rollout of its ADP digital bunkering platform. Some 1.3 million mt of the company’s sales in 2023 were carried out using the ADP, compared with about 1 million mt the previous year.

Peninsula

Type: Trader and physical
Annual Volume (2023): 14.5 million mt
HQ: Financial: Dublin; Operational: Gibraltar and London
Website: www.peninsula360.com

Company Profile

Peninsula is one of the world’s largest integrated bunker suppliers active in cargo sales, shipping, barging, derivatives, carbon management, and physical supply. The group is owned and run by Gibraltar-based John A Bassadone.

The company counts Gibraltar, Algeciras and surrounding ports, with all ports in the ARA region, Las Palmas, Mauritius, Panama (Balboa and Cristobal), Malta, Skaw, Copenhagen, Fujairah and Khor Fakkan among its key bunkering locations.

2023 saw the company ‘s bunker volumes hold steady at 14.5 million mt, little changed from the previous year and down from 16 million mt in 2021.

But the company also expanded on several fronts. It added four vessels to its fleet: the Hercules Sky, Hercules Sun, Hercules Moon and Levante LNG.

The firm has entered the LNG bunkering market for the first time, making its first deliveries in Gibraltar, Algeciras and Cadiz, as well as expanding its biofuel operations and winning ISCC certification for two new locations.

The company also opened a new office in Madrid in 2023, and plans to add more physical supply operations in 2024 as well as undertaking projects looking into supplying other alternative fuels.

Vitol Bunkers

Type: Bunker Trader
Annual Volume (2023): 12.7 million mt
HQ: Dubai (de facto), Singapore (de jure)
Website: www.vitolbunkers.com

Company Profile

Commodity trading firm Vitol has long played a role in global bunker markets, but only set up its dedicated marine fuels unit, Vitol Bunkers, in May 2021.

The operation at first had a heavy focus on the Singapore market, where Vitol had acquired local supplier Sinanju Tankers Holdings in March 2020 and renamed it under its own brand. Singapore remains a strong area for the firm – it was listed as the city-state’s fifth-largest supplier by volume in 2023 and fourth-largest in 2022 – but the company has since considerably expanded its global presence.

The company has physical supply operations in Australia, St Eustatius, China, Singapore, Fujairah, Houston and offshore in the US Gulf.

The company carried out about 12.7 million mt of physical bunker deliveries in 2023, up significantly from the 7 million mt seen in 2022. About 10 million mt of this figure is Vitol's own physical supply operations, with the remainder taken up by operations using Vitol's barges carried out on behalf of other companies.

The firm sold about 7 million mt of bunker fuel in Singapore alone last year.

A notable achievement has been the company’s hold on the biofuel bunker market in Singapore. The firm delivered a total of about 190,000 mt of biofuel blends in Singapore in 2023, or almost 36% of the city-state's total.

Early in 2024 the firm took delivery of its first specialised biofuel bunker delivery vessel in Asia. Because the vessel is specialised rather than being classed as a general oil tanker, it will be allowed to delivery biofuel blends of up to 100% bio content, while other delivery vessels have to keep the bio content below 25%.

TFG Marine Pte Ltd

Type: Supplier and trader
Annual Volume (2023): 10.6 million mt
HQ: Singapore
Website: www.tfgmarine.com

Company Profile

Singapore-based TFG Marine Pte Ltd is a relative newcomer in the bunkering space, having launched in early 2020 as the bunkering joint venture between majority owner Trafigura and John Fredriksen controlled shipping firms Golden Ocean Group Ltd and Frontline Ltd.

TFG is headed by Geneva-based Kenneth Dam.

The firm saw sales in 2023 of about 10.6 million mt, up from about 10 million mt the previous year.
Singapore has been a notable success story for TFG. The company was the city-state’s second-largest bunker supplier by volume in 2023, up from third place in 2022 and fifth in 2021. This came at a time when the overall Singapore market saw record volumes for 2023.

In 2023 TFG launched a new supply operation in Los Angeles, as well as adding to its operations in the US Gulf and Trinidad and Tobago.

The firm also continued its roll-out of mass flow meters on its barges around the world, as well as campaigning for more port authorities to make the use of these measurement systems mandatory.
TFG also launched a digital bunkering platform in 2022, with shareholder Golden Ocean trying the system out with one of its bulkers in December of that year.

In January 2024 it was announced that Fratelli Cosulich Group’s new dual-fuel methanol-powered 7,990 DWT bunker tanker with a battery system would be chartered to TFG for use in Singapore.

Monjasa

Type: Physical Supplier + Trader
Annual Volume (2023): 6.5 million mt
HQ: Fredericia, Denmark
Website: www.monjasa.com

Company Profile

Fredericia, Denmark-based Monjasa Holding AS (Monjasa) is primarily involved in the trading and physical supply of marine fuels but the group has interests in a number of related businesses, most notably its CBED project and hotel services for offshore operations and technical ship management company Montec.

Monjasa was founded in 2002 by Anders Østergaard and Jan Jacobsen. It is fully owned by its Dubai-based Group CEO, Østergaard. Through 14 global offices and more than 30 tankers and barges deployed across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, the firm has a truly worldwide footprint and a headcount of over 600.

The most recent chapter of Monjasa’s history has seen it enjoy some of its best ever years, achieving continued year-on-year growth despite the industry having faced a number of significant challenges, including IMO 2020 and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sources indicate the company will report another year of growth for 2023 with an annual sales volume of around 6.5 million mt, up from 6.4 million mt in 2022.

As in previous years, its sales volumes remain roughly split 50 / 50 between its trading and physical activities.

In 2023 the company launched a partnership aimed at promoting green ammonia availability in Northwest Europe. Monjasa also secured ISCC certification for biofuel supply in various locations and established Latin America’s first scalable biofuels supply chain in Cartagena, Colombia.

The company started operating its own tonnage in the Port of Singapore in 2023 and also recently relocated to a new and bigger office in Singapore.

In Panama Monjasa worked with the local authorities to develop an outer anchorage supply option for ship owners to take advantage of increased waiting times caused by canal transit restrictions.

In November the firm added two tankers to its West Africa operation, one of which, the Monjasa Leader, will be used as floating storage and is the largest vessel in its fleet.

In early 2023 the company also launched a new digital bunkering app, aiming to provide end-to-end transparency and visibility to its customers.

Integr8 Fuels

Type: Trader
Annual Volume (2023): 6.3 million mt
HQ: London
Website: www.integr8fuels.com

Integr8 Fuels is the marine fuel procurement and trading arm of the Navig8 Group, one of the world’s largest tanker operators. Integr8 has 12 offices worldwide, with Singapore, London and Dubai the major hubs, with additional offices in Athens, Houston, New York, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Hamburg, Mumbai, Oslo and Tokyo.

Managing Director Tushar Gole is based in Singapore.

Integr8 handles all bunker purchases for Navig8’s tankers employed via its various pools, but today the company’s main business covers a large and stable portfolio of third party customers which it says extends to over 850 customers.

In recent years the company has enjoyed steady annual volumes hovering just over 6 million mt. In 2023 the volumes total was 6.3 million mt, up from 6.2 million mt the previous year.

In 2023 the company won ISCC certification to trade biofuels, added trading desks in Rio de Janeiro, Taiwan, and Australia, and saw a boost in LNG bunker enquiries and some stems in this market.

The firm also has representation on bunker industry body IBIA’s technical and future fuels working groups.

Fratelli Cosulich Group of Companies

Type: Bunker trader and physical supplier
Annual Volume (2023): 5.5 million mt
HQ: Genoa, Italy
Website: www.cosulich.com

Company Profile

Family owned Fratelli Cosulich Group of Companies, whose history dates back to 1857, is active in the bunker industry through a number of Fratelli Cosulich-denominated subsidiaries. CEO Timothy Cosulich is based in Italy, and in Singapore the group has a well-established physical supply presence that was ranked 36th on the MPA’s list of suppliers by volume for 2023, down from 26th place the previous years.

Cosulich is a well known figure in the bunker industry and took up the role of IBIA chairman in 2022.

After starting 2021 with the launch of a new office in Greece, the firm now has a presence in 25 countries: Italy, Bosnia Herzegovina, Brasil, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Monaco, Netherland Antilles, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, United Kingdom, USA, and Vietnam.

Fratelli Cosulich has been one of the more active players in the alternative fuels space, in 2021 ordering two LNG bunkering vessels through its subsidiary Fratelli Cosulich LNG.

The firm launched its first LNG bunkering vessel, the Alice Cosulich, in March, and later in the year chartered it out to Titan.

The company has also ordered two methanol bunker delivery vessels, which are under construction in China.

In terms of bunker volumes, 2023 saw a small decline for Fratelli Cosulich, whose 5.5 million mt of sales represented a drop from the 6 million mt sold in 2022. The vast majority of sales come from the company’s trading activity.

Alpha Trading SpA

Type: Trader + Physical Supplier
Annual Volume (2023): 3 million mt
HQ: Genoa, Italy
Website: www.alphatrading.it

Italy-based Alpha Trading SpA (Alpha) is the largest marine fuel supplier in the Mediterranean, but the company has a truly international bunker trading operation that is responsible for the majority of its annual sales volume. It counts major cruise and container lines among its customer base.

Launched in October 2018, Alpha has been a physical supplier in Trieste and neighbouring ports of Koper, and Monfalcone.

Having been incorporated in 1985, Alpha has recently been enjoying some of its best ever years, reporting sales in 2018 of 3.7 million mt. Like many players the COVID-19 pandemic slowed Alpha’s sales, slipping in 2020 to under 3 million mt, but in 2021 and 2022 the total crept up to 3.5 million mt. In 2023 as the shipping markets cooled that figure returned to around 3 million mt.

The company has also been an active participant in the biodiesel market for more than two decades, and is now using that expertise with its marine customers as the shipping industry starts to take on biofuel bunker blends in significant quantities.

Other Players of Note

Hafnia Bunkers

Type: Bunker Buying Alliance
Website: hafniabw.com/bunkers/

As a buyer alliance, Hafnia buys fuel on behalf of other owners some may argue they to not strictly meet our criteria of being a seller to the end user of the marine fuel. Still, Hafnia covered about 3.5 million mt of sales in 2023, up from about 3.4 million mt in 2022, so certainly meets the criteria of being a player of note.

The firm expanded its presence in the biofuel bunker market in 2023, facilitating seven deliveries for the Unigas fleet.

Bunker industry veteran Peter Grünwaldt set up the shipping firm’s bunker desk in 2016, before rapidly expanding its focus to become a buying alliance procuring fuel for firms including Swire, Equinor and Clearlake.

While the idea of buyers coming together to pool their buying resources is nothing new, discussion on the matter saw particular attention in 2019 as part of the run up to IMO 2020. With costs for 0.50%S VLSFO bunkers expected to be significantly higher than IFO380 product, any route to reduce costs would be welcome. And while in early 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic and collapse of oil prices razed much of that interest, from 2021 Hafnia has reported growing interest in its alliance.

Buying alliances are still relatively unique, and to some extent could be confused with brokers. Indeed, they take a similar passive role in the buying process, essentially providing guidance on who to buy from. The payment structure has a similar transparency, with customers paying suppliers directly and then paying a transparent, predictable commission to the buying alliance at the end of each month. Learn more here: https://shipandbunker.com/news/world/898730-feature-are-bunker-buying-alliances-the-new-brokers

Cockett Marine Oil

Type: Bunker Trader
HQ: Dubai (de facto), Singapore (de jure)
Website: www.cockettgroup.com

Company Profile

Founded in the UK in 1979, the Cockett Group of companies has long been one of the world’s top suppliers in terms of bunker fuel and marine lubricants volume sold and has previously featured as one of the companies on our Top 10 list. Today, Cockett is a back-to-back trader operating out of 14 global offices, with a headcount of over 140 employees. Cockett is headed by CEO Cem Saral.

Cockett essentially has two bases: Cockett Singapore is its official headquarters, while the Dubai office is the commercial hub, and is where CEO Cem Saral and key executives are based and from where most operations and trading are handled.

Since 2012 Cockett has been jointly owned in a 50/50 JV by South African logistics conglomerate Grindrod Ltd and commodity trading group Vitol BV. Grindrod is currently looking to exit the marine fuels business as part of a wider shake up of its own operations, but any sale of its stake in Cockett is currently postponed and not viewed by them as likely in the short term. For its part, Vitol says it has no plan to sell its half of the firm or buy Grindrod’s stake, despite since 2021 Vitol having launched its own, separate marine fuels business.

Ones to Watch?

Other players that may appear in the report in years to come, given their recent growth, include Sing Fuels, Delta Energy Fuel Supply & Trading and Hartree Marine. And beyond the conventional fuels space, the alternative bunker fuels space is a set of much smaller markets, but ones that have the potential to eclipse petroleum-based bunker fuels in the coming decades. In this much smaller pond, companies that have the systemic importance of the top ten in conventional bunkers include Titan in LNG and GoodFuels in biofuels.