Upcoming Event to Showcase MFA's 'Sleeves Rolled Up' Approach to Solving Bunker Industry Challenges

The Marine Fuels Alliance (MFA) inaugural Bunker Workshop and Dinner event next month will be an opportunity to showcase the organization's 'sleeves rolled up' approach to meeting the challenges of the bunker industry, says MFA Chairman Robert Thompson.

"I am delighted that our first Marine Fuels Alliance event will be held in London on October 3 in collaboration with Ship & Bunker. While we are expecting to see many MFA members and partners in attendance, our event is open to all in the industry, not just MFA members. After all, to meet the tough challenges ahead we will need collaboration throughout the entire industry," he told Ship & Bunker.

"We are looking forward to welcoming you all in London in October and making our first event as enjoyable and informative as it is successful."

The Workshop portion of the event will be held at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH.

The business-casual networking drinks and dinner will follow at Piccolino, 21 Heddon Street, Mayfair, W1B 4BG.

To view the full agenda and book your attendance please visit: marinefuelsalliance.com/events/bunker-workshop-dinner

Sleeves Rolled Up

"When the MFA was founded just 2 years ago, it was always envisaged we would hold events and gatherings. It is fantastic to see this vision coming to fruition," Thompson told Ship & Bunker.

"The founding principles of the MFA were what we called a 'sleeves rolled up' approach. This meant not focusing too heavily on the high-level, academic side of our industry, as important as that is. Rather, our focus is delivering resources, knowledge, and tangible values for members and partners to confront and overcome the challenges of doing business today, and preparing for the important transitions that are going to impact the futures or our entire industry across all stakeholders.

"This is why we felt a workshop format for our first event works best. It is a chance to collaborate, learn, and move forward with ideas. Plus. of course, a hard day's work is always better when finished with some good food and drink while connecting and networking with our friends, colleagues, and peers. Hence, the evening dinner is a chance to relax and perhaps continue the discussions in an more informal way."

Event Format

Unlike more traditional bunker industry event formats that are based on speaker presentations and / or on-stage group discussions, the MFA Bunker Workshop and Dinner will comprise a series of simultaneous roundtable discussions, each centred on one of four Focus Areas:

• Decarbonisation
• Digitalisation
• Operations & Technical
• Risk

Attendees will be placed into one of four groups, with groups rotating through each of the four Focus Area roundtables throughout the day.

Each discussion will be lead by experts relevant to the Focus Area, including:

• Emilio Fontana, Grey Epoch (Decarbonisation)
• Jack Symonds, Envirosense Ltd. (Decarbonisation)
• Tue Nielsen, FuelBoss (Digitalisation)
• Anthony Mollet, Bridge Markets Ltd (Digitalisation)
• George Masvoulas, Petro-Inspect (Operations & Technical)
• John Phillips, Awyr Las Ltd (Risk - Credit)
• Ellis Tiffin, Windward (Risk - Sanctions & Compliance)

"Staying with our founding principals of 'Promote, Support, Connect', we remain true to this concept. Many of our partners use the MFA to help promote their products and services to our industry. These can be invaluable services which are not always immediately obvious or accessible and we have seen many examples of partnerships being formed as a result," Thompson added.

"We are always, as core pillars of what the MFA stands for, trying to support our membership in line with our founding principles of providing valuable resources in an accessible way. Often ones which the small companies cannot access, or perhaps find too expensive or out of reach to be able to adopt without some form of collaborative approach.

"This is a very important aspect to us when looking at the direction and strategy of the MFA. The key takeaway of everything we do is to raise awareness, raise standards, educate ourselves and our peers on important topics, develop greater understanding then finally, and not least, create tangible resources to augment everything we have discussed and learned.

"The workshop will be no different. We expect to come out of it with a lot of material of great value to members, partners, and all others in the industry who are not yet MFA members, hopefully having stimulated those that attended on the important topics of our time.

To learn more about the event and join the discussion by booking your attendance, please visit: marinefuelsalliance.com/events/bunker-workshop-dinner