Top five marine bunkering companies in 2022

Marine bunkering services refer to supplying a ship with fuel. Bunkers play a very key role in commercial maritime shipping as they represent about 40-60% of a ship’s total operating costs. These operating costs, of course, will increase relatively high when considering the modern prices of marine fuels.

The marine bunkering services have increased their annual sales volume for 2022. The top bunkering companies in the world have significantly improved their sales volume when compared to 2021 sales.

The following are the top five bunkering companies in the world based on the sales volume for the year 2022.

Bunker Holding

Bunker Holding (BH) with its headquarters located at Demark, is one of the leading companies in bunker trading. The company has 66 offices located across 37 countries in the world. It has a presence in 1,764 shipping ports across the world. The company has subsidiaries including A/S Dan-Bunkering, Glander International Bunkering, KPI OceanConnect, and Bunker One.

BH has recorded top bunker sales among the bunker companies in the world in the year 2022 in terms of volume to the end users of fuel as it had sold 30 million mt of annual sales. The company also recorded the largest fuel sales for the preceding years 2021 and 2020.

World Fuel Services

World Fuel Services (WFS) is a Miami-based company that provides fuel-related logistics and services to the marine, land, and aviation sectors.

WFS has recorded a record sales volume of 19.1 million mt in 2022. The majority of its fuel sales were traded in the UK, Gibraltar, and Tampa Bay. The company has recently forayed into biofuel bunker blends supply and it has also signed a deal to supply hydrogen to a ferry company.

Minerva Bunkering

Headquartered in Geneva, Minerva Bunkering is a subsidiary of Mercuria Energy Group. The physical supplier and trader with its presence spread across 52 shipping ports across the world is the third-largest bunker supplier in the world. It has sold an annual volume of 16.5 million mt in 2022.

Minerva Bunkering has a strong presence in Singapore. The company rolls out the ADP digital bunkering platform which accounted for more than one million mt of its sales in 2022.

Peninsula

Peninsula headquartered at Dublin is one of the largest integrated bunker suppliers in the world. It actively offers cargo sales, shipping, barging, derivatives, and carbon management. 

Peninsula’s annual bunker volumes for 2022 were 14.5 million mt. It has supply operations spanning Gibraltar, Algeciras, and surrounding ports, Las Palmas, Copenhagen, and Fujairah. It has also expanded its supply footprint with additional vessels in Fujairah and Gibraltar. The company is partnering with Petronas on LNG bunker supply in Malaysia.

Peninsula also going to strengthen its lower carbon fuel offerings by introducing a new build LNG bunker supply vessel this year. It is also going to obtain ISCC certification to enable biofuel supply.

TFG Marine

Singapore-based TFG Marine is a joint venture between Golden Group Ltd, and Frontline Ltd. The company has recorded annual sales of 10 million mt in 2022. The company has launched a new digital bunkering platform in 2022. It has been rolling out mass flow meters across its delivery fleet. TFG is the largest bunker supplier from the Singapore region.

Of late, the initiatives adopted by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) for the global sustainability of the commercial maritime shipping industry, with a target of cutting about 70% of the carbon emissions, have put bunkering companies to adopt future fuels for energy transformation. This could be a major disruptor for the bunkering industry in the times to come, as they have to pump in major investments towards infrastructure creation for the new and potential alternative fuels.

Tags: Bunker Holding, Marine bunkering, Marine bunkering companies, Minerva Bunkering, Peninsula, TFG Marine, World Fuel Services