Singapore Marine Fuel Sales Surge 7.2%
Singapore's marine fuel sales set a monthly record in January after climbing to 4.606 million tonnes, up 3.2 percent from a year earlier as vessels coming to the world's largest bunkering hub loaded larger amounts of bunker fuel per vessel on average, official data showed.
Compared with the previous month, sales in January were up 7.2 percent, data from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) showed. The number of vessels that called at Singapore for bunkers fell by 4.4 percent from last year to 3,472 but was at an eight-month high, MPA data showed.
Vessels calling at Singapore for bunkers loaded larger quantities of fuel with each ship taking on an average 1,330 tonnes of fuel in January, slightly below the 1,350 tonne record in November.
Monthly sales of 380-cst high-sulphur fuel oil jumped to a record high of 3.37 million tonnes in January, up 5 percent from December and 1 percent higher than the previous record of 3.34 million tonnes in January 2017.
Sales of 500-cst fuel oil were also at a record 980 tonnes in January, up 10 percent from last year and 26 percent higher than December.
The record monthly sales figures came despite rising crude oil prices, which in January lifted the cost of benchmark marine fuel oil to its highest since late-2014. Singapore became the world's first port to mandate the use of mass-flow-meters (MFM) at the start of 2017 and set a record 50.6 million tonnes of marine fuels sales in the year.
