The bunker industry is preparing to cope with the once-unimaginable problem of going without Russian oil as the war in Ukraine increasingly prompts the West to shun the Kremlin’s energy exports, reports Ship&Bunker.
Bunkering firms suspended deals at Russian ports
Most of the biggest bunkering firms have already stopped doing deals at Russian ports, and the industry is now grappling with how to avoid Russian-produced oil altogether at ports elsewhere in the world. Russia’s refineries tend to produce a higher yield of fuel oil than facilities elsewhere — the country exported 2.72 million mt of fuel oil last month — and much of this output ends up in bunker blends.
“Surely that’s a very difficult thing to do — especially for an industry that likes to operate quietly,” Peter Sand, chief analyst at freight analytics firm Xeneta, told Ship&Bunker on Wednesday.
“All this attention makes it tough. So far, it’s mainly reputational risk that’s at stake — it we reach a point where it’s a breach of sanctions to use fuels of Russian origin, some of the smaller players in the market tracking the origins of oil may be in a super busy time of their lives.”
The industry is in the early stages of making its plans around how to handle this issue, and several contacts approached for this story spoke only on condition of anonymity.
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Source: Ship&Bunker
