Americas News
5-Month Panama Bunker Volumes Break 2 Million MT Mark, Rise 22% Y-o-Y
The latest data from the Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) shows bunker sales for the first five months of the year have broken the 2 million metric tonne (mt) mark after increasing almost 22 percent year-on-year.
Sales for all products during the January to May 2017 period was 2,050,659 mt, compared to 1,682,683 mt for the five month period to May 2016, and 1,556,731 mt for the same period in 2015.
The port of Balboa on the country's Pacific coast accounted for 1,585,411 mt of total sales, while the Atlantic coast with the port of Cristobal supplied 465,248 mt.
The product mix was 1,891,310 mt (92 percent) fuel oil and 159,349 mt (8 percent) MGO.
As of May there are 32 bunkering vessels operating in the country, according to official data.
The increase in bunker sales comes as the country last week celebrated the one year anniversary of the opening of the Expanded Panama Canal, although the rise in volume is not simply a result of a larger average stem size that one might expect to have come as a result of larger vessels now traversing the Canal.
While the average stem size did increase in 2017, to 805 mt compared to 737 mt for the period in 2016, the number of ships bunkered also went up 11 percent year-on-year to 2,548 during the five months to May 2017, compared to 2,284 for the period last year.
Bunker supplier Monjasa, who recently expanded its operations in Panama with an improved physical supply offering, has told Ship & Bunker its bunker volumes in Panama have been "significantly increasing."
