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India- Crisis over Bunker Fuel Prices

Bunker fuel in a broad sense is used for any fuel which is poured into a ship’s bunkers. The role of this fuel is to give power to its engines

The north Asian countries are the major players in the case of marine trades and commerce, the recent coronavirus outbreak has led to an unprecedented crisis in the prices of bunker fuels.

All the ports lying between Shanghai and Hong Kong have reported an all-time low price of the bunker and marine fuels at the rates of $595/mt and $570/mt.

Global impact of these lowering prices

The recent outbreak of the crisis in the north Asian region has made the sellers very much unwilling to sell their fuel as they do not want to incur a loss.

This indefinite delay in the supply of bunker fuel to major ports of the region has impacted the marine commerce all over the globe. According to some sellers, this particular period of the year is very slow for business as the ship owners have a slow trade after the Lunar Year and the added threat of coronavirus outbreak has made them more pessimistic about purchasing bunker fuels.

The custom clearance situation

Along with the epidemic, the issue of more stringent custom checking procedures has slowed down the bunkering process considerably and all the major sellers across the north-eastern ports are bearing the brunt.

The worker and buyers sentiment along with more stringent clearance measures have impacted the global supply of bunker to all the major ports and the sea trade is expected to take a more massive hit in the upcoming weeks.

Measures being taken

The government is rising to the challenge and have extended their Lunar New Year holidays by a week and are instructing people to complete their work online. This is being done to obtain more time for containing the outbreak.

As per the report published by Value Market Research on the bunker fuel market, the high demand from the shipping industry as well as the oil & gas is anticipated to trigger growth in the market Despite the measures being taken, the market for bunker fuels has taken a heavy blow and the sales for February are expected to be the same, if not worse.

Anay Malhotra a qualified computer analyst turned freelancer who writes for Value News where his passion and hard work has earned him a Star Employee for 2 consecutive months. He has been working and exploring varied professionals like Modelling, Event Management and Writing.
Source: VMR News

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