Singapore: 2023 Best Ever Year for Bunker Sales After Record High December Volumes

Record breaking bunker sales in December helped make 2023 Sigapore's best ever year for annual bunker sales with over 51 million mt sold, according to the latest provisional data released today by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA).

Bunker sales in December, inclduing biofuel blends but excluding alternative fuels including LNG and methanol, totalled just over 5 million mt for the first time in the port's history. 

For context, monthly sales during the previous 11 months of 2023 averaged 4.25 million mt/month.

The impressive 18% month-on-month gain over November's sales total and 20% rise year-over-year was due mostly to a much higher stem size of 1,425 mt. This is the first time the monthly stem size has passed 1,400 mt.

In contrast, there were 3,539 calls for bunkers, an increase of 4% over November and 7% y-o-y.

The impressive December figures meant 2023 was Singapore's best ever year for bunker sales with an official volume of 51,824,030 mt, an increase of 8% over the 47.9 milion mt sold in 2022.

Official data now includes sales of LNG, methanol, and biofuel blends, and as expected most of the sales volume was taken up by conventional bunker product with biofuel sales coming in at 524,000 mt for the year and LNG at 111,000 mt. Methanol sales totalled 300 mt.

Even excluding alternative and biofuel bunkers from the total puts sales of conventional oil-based bunkers at just under 51.2 million mt, meaning there is no question over Singapore's achievement of passing the 51 million mt mark for the first time in its history.

For context on how dominant the world's biggest bunkering hub has become, official IMO data puts the global bunker market at around 225 million mt.

While calls for bunkers in 2023 saw a modorate increase of 3.5% to 44,746, the number of vessel arrivals in the port jumped by 20% in 2023 to 121,403 compared to 100,807 in 2022.

Cargo throughput in containers and cargo rose by 4.6% an 2.3% respectively, the figures show.