• Relaunched platform was previously known as Maritime IntelX
• Data from AuctionConnect and Bunker Holding gives it visibility over 30 million mt/year of transactions
• Focus will remain tightly on bunker pricing

Kenneth Juhls is leading the company while also continuing to serve as AuctionConnect CEO. Image Credit: Tideform

Bunker pricing platform Tideform is being relaunched, with an AI-driven focus and backed by more than 30 million mt/year of marine fuel transaction data.

Tideform, previously known as Maritime IntelX, is being relaunched with new product offerings under the leadership of Kenneth Juhls, also CEO of sister company AuctionConnect.

Juhls aims to leverage the data from both AuctionConnect and the wider Bunker Holding group towards delivering accurate, live pricing to help the market with decision-making, he said in an interview with Ship & Bunker.

The firm's large dataset means it has visibility over more than 10% of global bunker trades.

"We want to really try to bring that intelligence and that market insight, based on a big dataset, into the market," he said.

"We know there are other players out there, but we want to do our part in pushing that transparency and helping them convert data into actionable knowledge to they can make informed decisions."

AI Agent

A key element to Tideform's relaunch will be the inclusion of an AI agent, Atlas, which users can converse with to ask questions about the market.

The agent comes with a messaging interface, allowing users to ask in natural language about the current state of prices.

"They can query through a messaging app, what are the prevailing prices in any given port; 500 ports around the world, all the grades," Juhls said.

"We want to develop that even further in terms of other features and other market insights that could be relevant, but all within the pricing range."

The range of questions that Atlas can answer is being kept relatively narrow at launch, focusing on prices at given ports and the spread to other ports. But the firm plans to develop the tool into delivering more complex insights over time.

"You see many AI agents imposed on datasets where you're starting to interact with data in a much more intuitive way; that is the direction of travel that we see our solution going in as well," Juhls said.

Tideform's platform comes with three different subscription tiers for different types of user.

The Atlas tier offers access to the Atlas AI agent only, answering questions via instant messaging about prices at all the ports the company has intelligence on.

The next tier provides access to the Tideform Dashboard, showing live marine fuel prices, forward curves and market signals. The layout is similar in appearance to a Bloomberg terminal, with price tables, charts and news headlines displayed in boxes beside one another.

Finally the company has an API tier allowing users to integrate the Tideform data into a variety of applications where bunker pricing will be relevant, including voyage planning and fleet decision tools.

30 Million MT/Year of Data

At the core of Tideform's value proposition is the large size of the dataset to which it has access.

The firm has a data agreement with Bunker Holding, giving it access to transaction data from the world's largest marine fuels firm. It also receives data from the AuctionConnect platform, where other companies also trade marine fuels, meaning its dataset covers a large share of the global market.

Bunker Holding and its brands saw a total of about 24 million mt of bunker sales in 2025, according to Ship & Bunker's Top Ten Bunker Firms for 2026 report. Tideform markets itself as having access to more than 30 million mt/year of bunker delivery data.

Global bunker demand was about 245.1 million mt in 2024, according to data from the IMO, meaning the company is seeing more than 10% of global transactions. And given the global figure will include a large proportion of contract sales, the share of spot transactions over which it has visibility will be much higher.

"You put in that raw deal data from Bunker Holding, but also those quite elaborate sourcing reports, and then a few other sources, but that data is the primary source of intelligence," Juhls said.

"With AuctionConnect as well, we are also seeing datapoints from this platform; that is not Bunker Holding traded data, that is other clients that are interacting on that platform.

"So as that grows, the total data feed will grow, obviously all dependent on user rights and access rights to use data; all is anonymised and aggregated, and you can never identify the underlying transaction."

Tideform receives its data on a live basis, meaning it can deliver near-live prices after its model interprets the raw data.

"Obviously we are looking at how can the model be even better, going forward - how can that account for different scenarios in the market?" Juhls said.

"The market is extremely volatile, and the spreads are extreme as well. Putting one price out there and saying that is the price in Singapore, I think that that's probably not the truth.

"It's one datapoint that the model spits out, but there's a huge spread and range around that.

"We probably also want to look at, how do we create that distribution within a day, to provide a little bit more flavour around that."

Keeping Focus on Prices

Digital bunkering and related companies are currently undergoing something of a renaissance, and their leaders are experimenting with where their firms should deploy their resources as they try to determine what the industry's future needs will be.

Some are taking a wide focus, building their data out into vessel optimisation services that can provide users with instructions on where and when would be the best time to bunker.

But this will not be Tideform's approach in the near future, Juhls said, arguing for a narrower focus on a single function that allows the company to excel in its areas of biggest strength.

"What we want to be really good at is the intelligence and market insights, where is the market and how do we bring that in an easy way to our users," Juhls said.

"Then we want to be really good in the price discovery process of frictionless, second-to-none compliance, fully scalable interaction between buyers, suppliers and traders.

"That's our domain, that's where we want to focus; we believe if we try to do too much, too widely, we will not be really good at it."

Dual Role

As well as now taking on the leadership of Tideform, Juhls has also served as AuctionConnect CEO since July 2025, a role he will continue with alongside the new job.

This unusual position Juhls leading two different marine fuel brands at the same time is part of a conscious strategy on the part of the firm's owners to keep a unified focus on the digital space.

"It's obviously a deliberate choice from the owners and the board of directors," he said.

"The board of directors is the same across both companies.

"We have sales people working on both products, and then we have product teams also aligning on the product roadmaps around those two products and those two companies, but it's all operated and run by me under the same oversight from the board.

"It's a long-term solution.

"We see significant synergies between the two companies ,while they each have their distinct mission.

"Tideform's is to provide market intelligence, and AuctionConnect's is to build the future procurement infrastructure."