Hafnia: Legal Action Might be Needed Over Bad Bunker Time Bars

Peter Grunwaldt, Head of Bunkers at Hafnia. Image Credit: Hafnia

Hafnia wants legal action to be considered as an option against bunker suppliers it says are hiding behind time-bars to avoid dealing with the recent spate of "bad bunker" claims.

“Ideally we would like industry bodies such as IMO and IBIA to fight this problem on the behalf of all owners and buyers,” Peter Grunwaldt, Head of Bunkers at Hafnia told Ship & Bunker.

After first emerging in April in the US Gulf market, the problems have spread to other major markets including Panama and Singapore.

When burning the suspect fuels, common issues involve the sticking of fuel plungers, blocked fuel filters, and/or fuel-pump seizures and failures, but a key problem for buyers has been that they have passed conventional testing and otherwise meet the chemical requirements for bunkers as per ISO 8127.

This has made it difficult to detect such fuels in a timely manner. Bunker supply contracts also contain clauses that require all quality claims to be made within a certain period of time, with The North of England P&I Association Limited (North P&I Club) in July having already warned these “notoriously short time-bar clauses” could be a problem.

“Some suppliers feel the time-bars are their 'get-out-of-jail-card’. As all samples are on-spec as per ISO8217 and seemingly fit for use, there might not be time for a malfunction to show before the time bars kicks in. Consequently we feel this is something that needs to be looked at. Fuel containing a 'hidden failure' should not be possible for the sellers to ‘time bar’,” Grunwaldt told Ship & Bunker.

"We feel that the time-bar should be waived once the fuel has been proved unfit for use, especially if we have done all the common testing beforehand."

Grunwaldt stresses that not all suppliers are acting in the same way, but that certain companies “don’t seem interested, or are too scared, to help."

"Considering the number of bunkerings we do every month in these areas, we can’t say we have been hard hit. But we are surprised to learn the scale of the problem and feel something needs to be done.

"The time bars allows the supplier to let the Owners sit back with the bill, and we just don’t think that’s fair. Suppliers needs to take their responsibility seriously."