Monjasa Expands Physical Bunker Operations in Panama Amid "Significantly Increasing" Sales Volume

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Wednesday July 5, 2017

Monjasa has expanded its operations in Panama, with an improved physical supply offering coming alongside a significant uptick in bunker sales volumes for the supplier in the growing market, COO Svend Stenberg Mølholt has told Ship & Bunker.

"We opened up in Panama a couple of years ago after having traded back-to-back from the US since 2011. Over the last months we've been focusing on further improving our physical supply in the Panama Canal teaming up with some of the relationships we have built and for about three months now are able to operate from an improved physical setup in Panama," Said Mølholt.

"This lets us be much more in control of the whole supply chain. We have local storage in place and then we manage four barges too. Three in Balboa and one in Cristóbal. We also do our own sourcing from some of the majors, which again lets us gain further control of the supply chain. It's a formula that we've seen making a success for most places in the world and now in Panama."

Last week, Panama commemorated the one-year anniversary of the inauguration of its Expanded Canal, and Monjasa was among those who, at the time of its opening, predicted the move would be a positive one for the industry.

Indeed, official figures from The Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) for the first five months of the year show bunker sales have increased almost 22 percent year-on-year, hitting 2,050,659 metric tonnes (mt) for all products 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.

Rising Bunker Volumes

In previous years questions have been raised as to whether actual sales volumes in the port have increased as much as the data suggests, with some established local players telling Ship & Bunker that the picture may have been muddied by improved data collection methods rather than an actual jump in sales.

But from Monjasa's perspective, rising sales volumes is something they have been enjoying in the market.

"From Monjasa's point of view at least, we've seen our volumes significantly increasing. How much of that comes on the back of market share, or because the whole market is going up, I don't currently have numbers to support that," said Mølholt.

"But we do see more market demand, and at Monjasa we see there is a pickup in our supply also."

As for the future, Mølholt sees many strong years ahead in Panama.

"I think that's true for us at Monjasa as well as the market as a whole. And we are not afraid to say we see this, even if it might encourage our competitors to fly in to set up tomorrow! This is because it has taken us years to get to where we are today," he said.

"Establishing our trading and operations departments and regional management in Panama City has definitely had a massive impact on the service level we are able to offer. If necessary, we can have one of our own employees on board a vessel on-site in the Canal within the hour. Coupled with having reliable counter parties and being in control of the supply chain, setting up with the majors for sourcing etc etc, that takes many years.

"We started at the right time and we, and our customers, are now reaping the benefits."