LQM: We'll Be Offering More Trading Services

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Wednesday November 6, 2019

LQM's desire to keep pace with industry change, particularly when it comes to transparency, is one of the key drivers behind its continued diversification into bunker trading.

It also simply wants to offer its clients a wider range of bunker buying solutions, CEO Daniel Rose explains in the latest edition of SeaCred's Ship Happens podcast.

"I think a lot of bunker brokers started their business and profited from the asymmetry of information that existed in the 80's and 90's and beyond," he told Jason Silber, founder of SeaCred and host of Ship Happens.

"Now in the year 2019 with the Internet and with data as it is, I think you can be a bunker buyer, you can Google pretty much most of what you need to know about who supplies where, what prices are, and so on. So we as bunker brokers need to change to make sure we're offering the very best value to our customers, and that will see us offering more trading services as we go forward."

Founded in 1982, LQM branched out into bunker trading in 2017, saying at the time it was a "natural evolution" for the firm.

With IMO2020 less than 60 days away, and the cost of bunkers expected to rise significantly as a result, Rose says that diversification makes more sense than ever.

"We've had a number of customer relationships that have lasted nearly 30 years. When prices go up we might discover that the physical suppliers that know those accounts might reach maximum credit capacity. If we are remaining as a broker only then we wouldn't be able to help them procure bunkers if those suppliers run out of credit," says Rose.

"Now we can step in and continue to trade, and continue to enable their vessels to get bunkers and everything goes on as normal."

The full Ship Happens podcast can be found here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/chat-with-daniel-rose/id1468911740?i=1000455863306