Americas News
Panama Bunker Demand Could Lose Another 4% This Year: Peninsula
Bunker demand in Panama could drop by a further 4% this year on top of 2020's COVID-related decline, according to marine fuel supplier Peninsula.
Alonso Young, physical sales manager for the Americas at Peninsula, made the forecast at a webinar hosted by price reporting agency Opis on Tuesday. In 2020 the country's demand dropped by 14% to 4.7 million mt, while in the first quarter of 2021 sales volumes were down by 6.9% from the same period a year earlier at 1.3 million mt.
"What we're expecting this year is to be coming into a much better situation and the market to recover in Q3 and Q4," Young said.
"My fear and my prediction is that the market could end with another 4% lower than last year, in terms of metric tonnes delivered.
"I don't want to see that -- I want to see at least Panama going back to the same levels that we delivered in 2020, but right now I'm not getting those figures with my calculations."
Panama is losing market share in particular to Houston, New Orleans and various ports in Asia, Young said.
Adrian Tolson, director of consultancy BLUE Insight, suggested during the webinar that Brazil may also increasingly be taking away market share.
"Brazil becoming a dominant supplier of low-sulfur fuel in Latin America just sucks away certain elements of demand that might, once upon a time, have bunkered in Panama," Tolson said.
