Bunker crisis enters fourth week

CLIVE EMDON
THE CRISIS in the supply of bunker oil fuel to the shipping industry has entered its fourth week. The maintenance shutdown of two national refineries, the Sapref refinery owned by Shell and BP in Prospecton near Durban, and the Caltex-owned Chevron refinery in Cape Town, precipitated the crisis wahich has left the shipping industry high and dry. Little information is available on future supplies or prices. Both the Chevron refinery and the Engen refinery in Durban are producing quantities of bunker oil fuel, but only for contracted clients. “We expect the fuel oil production to increase gradually from the middle of next week,” Caltex’s Chevron refinery public affairs manager Phumi Nhlapo told FTW. Engen spokesperson, Barbara Manson, said last Friday (August 11) that Engen’s spot price in Durban was US$375/mt. “The company is only quoting for business from August 28 onwards. We are fully committed for all dates prior to that.” Engen plans to secure a cargo for delivery to Richards Bay in the next few weeks. Shell’s external affairs manager,Vernon de Vries, said the company’s trading department was considering imports – “which have become extremely expensive”.