Category Archives: News
Credit Where Credit’s Due
In this detailed discussion of bunker credit issues, Steve Simms of Simms Showers offers a useful checklist for bunker suppliers when tasked with making sound credit decisions Back, back to the end of 2019. 0. 50% sulphur content bunkers would be the worldwide standard. Futures prices of very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) were… Read More »
In the Loop – Scrubber Law for Bunker Providers
Supplying HSFO to scrubber-equipped vessels is not necessarily an ‘easy sell’. Steve Simms of Simms Showers takes a close look at the small print about scrubber use in maritime regulations and contracts. With more vessels using scrubbers and even more expected to use them, there already is increased regulatory and compliance focus on scrubber-equipped… Read More »
Fit For Purpose – Future Fuels and Contracts
Shipping’s energy transition is underway but the switch to new fuels will require a new commercial approach. Steve Simms of Simms Showers considers how bunker sales terms should be revised or written anew in the years ahead. With new marine fuels present in liquid natural gas, synthetic fuels, and others, the international bunkering industry… Read More »
Unseen enemy
“Going viral” describes the rapid spread of disease, as seen with the coronavirus outbreak, and has also been coined by the IT sector to describe computer cyberattacks. Steve Simms of Simms Showers considers the cyber security challenges facing the bunker sector. In 2017, World Health Organization experts wrote that ‘[f]ew doubt that major epidemics… Read More »
LNG Bunker Terms – Developing Effective LNG Bunkering Terms and Conditions
Bunker traders and brokers can add distinct value to LNG bunker provisions. Effective LNG bunker provision turns on having counterparties which are committed to knowing the necessary operations closely, and continually. As the LNG bunker market expands along with the number of LNG buyers, bunker traders and brokers can and should be able to… Read More »
FONAR Compliance: Getting it Right
Bunker suppliers, traders, and brokers must now be FONAR: Fully On Notice About Requirements. With the prohibition on using non-IMO 2020 compliant fuels coming into force on 1 January 2020, Steve Simms of Simms Showers takes a forensic look at FONARS – and finds some of the wording open to interpretation The International Maritime… Read More »
Bunker Blending Liability: Cut to the Chase
What, if any, liability is there for suppliers of blend stock or cutter stock – or for those who deliver faulty blends – to those damaged by non-compliant blends? The Houston-sourced, blended fuel quality problems were powerful trouble for the many suppliers, traders, charterers and owners they affected. The Houston problem seems to have… Read More »
Bunker Claims Deadlines: Timed Out?
Post-2020, there will be fuel blending to meet the global 0.50% Sulphur content requirements. That brings the issue of fuel quality claims sharply into focus. An estimate is that at least one out of every 140 bunker provisions causes vessel machinery damage and a central part of the disputes involves contractual time deadlines to… Read More »
BIMCO Bunker Terms 2018
The 2018 Terms successfully advance the industry-wide debate that BIMCO’s 1995 Fuelcon began. It is essential now to continue the debate, particularly during the short time until 2020. On 2 May 2018, the BIMCO Documentary Committee approved the BIMCO Bunker Terms 2018. The primary goal for what is now the 2018 Terms was to… Read More »
Bunker Delivery Notes (BDNs): Thinking Outside the Box
01 January 2019 is the date by which all bunker suppliers and their customers subject to MARPOL Annex VI must use new bunker delivery notes (BDN). The new BDN raises a number of issues that suppliers and traders would do well to address. Bunker suppliers and traders must appreciate that they increasingly will be… Read More »
