The Top 10 Bunker Companies for 2023 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 2023

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 07, 2023

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 (2022): 30 million mt (traded, physical, broking). No change from 2021.
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 2022 of around 30 million mt - the same as it recorded for 2021 and 2020.

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 $103 million in the year to April 30, 2022, up from $70.3 million the year earlier and the second-highest result in Bunker Holding’s history.

In terms of growth expectations, in June 2022 CEO Keld Demant told Ship & Bunker that tougher credit conditions for the bunker industry as a result of higher prices could steer more business towards Bunker Holding.

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. He had told Ship & Bunker at the start of 2021 that the firm was looking for acquisitions, but no significant ones have emerged over the past two years.

In May 2022 the company announced it had set a new five-year strategy addressing new trends such as alternative fuels and technology, as well as how the company is run.

Bunker Holding, its parent company and its subsidiaries have since undergone the most substantial internal structural and personnel changes in recent times. 

Dan-Bunkering organised a ‘commercial merger’ of its three separate European units in Copenhagen, Middelfart and Monaco late in 2022, with Monaco managing director Hans Lind Dollerup being announced as the new European managing director in early 2023.

South African Bunker Holding subsidiaries SABT and Amoil were merged into Bunker Holding in 2022.

In September 2022 Bunker Holding moved its key account management unit, Bunker One Global Accounts, to become part of KPI OceanConnect. Anders Grønborg was moved to become CEO of KPI OceanConnect, replacing Søren Høll, who became head of global operations at Bunker Holding.

Bunker One Global Accounts continues to be led by former IBIA Chairman Henrik Zederkof, who now reports to Grønborg as part of the KPI OceanConnect staff. Michael Furze, previously global lead of Bunker One Global Accounts, stepped down in August 2022.

Further up the management chain at Bunker Holding's parent company, USTC, founder Torben Østergaard-Nielsen passed down the role of CEO to his daughter, Nina Østergaard Borris, in May 2022, moving to become chairman of the company's board.

His other daughter, Mia Østergaard Rechnitzer, stepped into the firm's executive management as chief governance officer.

The previous board chairman, Klaus Nyborg, was moved to vice chairman of USTC, as well as taking over from Østergaard-Nielsen as chairman of Bunker Holding.

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 (2022): 19.1 million mt, up from 18.4 million mt in 2021
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 2022 WFS saw annual volumes of 19.1 million mt, up from the 18.4 million mt posted for 2021. Quarterly volumes in 2022 were 4.6 million mt, 4.9 million mt, 4.8 million mt and 4.7 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.

In the second quarter of 2022 the firm’s gross profit margin from bunker sales jump to the highest level since at least the third quarter of 2014, and the margin only declined slightly in Q3.

In 2022 the firm made early steps into biofuel bunker blend supply, and signed a deal to supply hydrogen to a ferry company in San Francisco.

 

Minerva Bunkering

Type: Physical supplier and trader
Annual Volume (2022): 16.5 million mt - up from 15.5 million mt in 2021
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 52 ports with physical operations, Minerva lists its key operational hubs as Geneva, Athens, New York, Singapore, Antwerp, Panama, and Las Palmas.

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 2022 volumes are understood to be around 16.5 million mt, up from around 15.5 million mt in 2021. 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 2022 it was ranked as the ninth largest player by volume, up four places from 13th in 2021.

Minerva added physical supply operations in the Red Sea and Argentina at the end of 2021, but withdrew from physical supply at Los Angeles and Long Beach in early 2023.

The firm continues the rollout of its ADP digital bunkering platform, and gained its first third-party user of the platform in Aramco Trading. More than 1 million mt of the company’s sales in 2022 were carried out using the ADP.

The company also launched biofuel blend sales in Singapore in 2022.

 

Peninsula

Type: Trader and physical
Annual Volume (2021): 14.5 million mt - down from 16 million mt in 2021
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.

2022 saw the company slip slightly in bunker volumes, down to about 14-15 million mt from 16 million mt the previous year.

But the firm also expanded its supply footprint, setting up a new physical supply operation in Fujairah with three supply vessels, adding new vessels in Gibraltar, planning another operation in Suez and partnering with Petronas on LNG bunker supply in Malaysia.

Peninsula also bolstered its lower carbon offering with the addition of a new build LNG bunker supply vessel due to arrive in the summer of 2023, and the approval of its ISCC certification enabling the company to begin biofuel supply imminently.

 

TFG Marine Pte Ltd

Type: Supplier and trader
Annual Volume (2022): 10 million mt - up from 8 million mt in 2021
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 2022 of about 10 million mt, up from an estimated 8 million mt the previous year. 

Singapore has been a notable success story for TFG. The company was the city-state’s third-largest bunker supplier by volume in 2022, up from fifth place in 2021 and 16th in 2020.

TFG also launched a digital bunkering platform in 2022, with shareholder Golden Ocean trying the system out with one of its bulkers in December.

In December Trafigura said TFG had seen a ‘stronger-than-expected’ profit in the year to September 30, without revealing the outright number. The firm is now operational at 35 bunkering hubs.

TFG has been rolling out mass flow meters across its delivery fleet, with a third of its vessels now having the measurement systems, and has been a strong advocate of this technology becoming mandatory at hubs around the world.

 

Vitol Bunkers

Type: Bunker Trader
Annual Volume (2022): 7.5 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 fourth-largest supplier by volume in both 2021 and 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 7.5 million mt of physical bunker deliveries in 2022, up from 6.7 million mt the previous year.

 

Monjasa

Type: Physical Supplier + Trader
Annual Volume (2022): 6.4 million mt - up from 5.7 million mt in 2021
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 IT consultancy, RelateIT.

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 some 30 tankers and barges deployed across the Americas, Europe and the Middle East & Africa, the firm has a truly worldwide footprint and a headcount of just over 500.

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 2022 with an annual sales volume up by 10-15% from 2021’s levels, or about 6.27-6.56 million mt outright.

The firm sold 5.7 million mt of bunkers in 2021, and 4.5 million mt and 4.9 million mt in 2019 and 2020 respectively. As in previous years, its sales volumes remain roughly split 50 / 50 between its trading and physical activities.

Monjasa added a new office and supply operation in Rio de Janeiro in 2022, as well as a new office in Shanghai and new biofuel supply operations in the UAE and the Americas.

At the start of 2023 the company announced it has launched a digital bunkering platform seeking to provide more transparency on the trading and delivery processes.

The firm has also signed a commercial collaboration agreement with power-to-x project HØST PtX Esbjerg to provide green ammonia logistics services in Northwest Europe. Monjasa will serve as maritime logistics partner, facilitating the supply of ammonia from the producer to its offtake partners, and will have reserved for it a share of the 600,000 mt/year production expected from the plant.

First production is expected between 2028 and 2030.

 

Integr8 Fuels

Type: Trader
Annual Volume (2022): 6.2 million mt - up from 6.1 million mt in 2021
HQ: London
Website: www.integr8fuels.com

The Integr8 Fuels group 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, Orlando, 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 of just over 6 million mt, and 2022 was no exception.

Integr8 is one of the few players with a presence in the bunkering technology space with its mobile app and digital bunkering platform ENGINE, which launched in 2020.

 

Fratelli Cosulich Group of Companies

Type: Bunker trader and physical supplier
Annual Volume (2022): 6.0 million mt - up from 5.5 million mt in 2021
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 26th on the MPA’s list of suppliers by volume for 2022, down from 25th place the previous two 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 newly-established subsidiary Fratelli Cosulich LNG. The pair of bunkering vessels are due to be delivered at the end of 2023, and one of them is likely to be deployed in the Mediterranean. The company is also working towards ordering an ammonia bunker delivery vessel, but a representative told Ship & Bunker it would be unlikely to be delivered before 2025 at the earliest.

In terms of bunker volumes, 2022 saw continued progress for Fratelli Cosulich, whose 6 million mt of sales represented steady growth from the 5.5 million mt sold in 2021 and 4 million MT in 2020. The vast majority of sales come from the company’s trading activity.

 

Alpha Trading SpA

Type: Trader + Physical Supplier
Annual Volume (2022): 3.5 million mt - up from 3.2 Million mt in 2021
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 coronavirus pandemic slowed Alpha’s sales, slipping in 2020 to under 3 million mt, but in 2021 the total crept up to 3.5 million mt, and 2022 saw further progress with a total of about 3.5 million mt.

 

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 strickly meet our criteria of being a seller to the end user of the marine fuel. Still, Hafnia covered about 3.4 million mt of sales in 2022 and is expecting further growth in 2023, so certainly meets the criteria of being a player of note.

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?l

Other players that may appear in the report in years to come, given their recent growth, include Sing Fuels and Delta Energy Fuel Supply & Trading. 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.