Americas News
Panama Bunker Volumes Drop 20%
Bunker sales in Panama have made the slowest start to the year since 2015, having fallen 20% year over year for the first two months of the year.
The latest data from the Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) indicates sales for all products over the first two months of the year totalled 723,894 mt - 392,832 mt in January and 331,062 mt in February. This compares to sales of 905,444 mt for the same two-month period in 2018 and 668,877 mt in 2015.
As is typical, some 90% of 2019's sales so far (652,179 mt) were for fuel oil and the 10% balance (71,715 mt) for distillates.
Despite the year-on-year slide, the 2019 figures are still favourable compared to the port's sales performance in the second half of 2018 when the average monthly sales were 340,569 mt.
This was a considerable decline from the 2018 H1 average of 418,036 mt/month, with the drop being widely attributed to a spate of "bad bunker" incidents connected to the port.
