Shipping: Exploring the deeper, darker depths of the bunker industry

Three stories are floating around the bunker press at the moment, highlighting the darker side of the industry at a time when it's trying to improve its reputation.

In Italy police have arrested the CEO of a bunker supplier in connection with allegations of an operation to smuggle stolen gasoil out of Libya and sell it on to customers in Europe.

Genoa-based Maxcom Bunker denies any involvement in the case, but CEO Marco Porta left the company last week and is now under arrest.

In the Netherlands, the Authority for Consumers and Markets is investigating so far unnamed companies over "a possible cartel in the bunker industry." The organization is looking into information it received from the police about allegedly prohibited price agreements between bunker companies in northwest Europe.

And in Denmark this week a court is hearing the appeal of bunker supplier Monjasa against a ruling last year that found it guilty in a fuel quantity dispute from 2011-13. The company was fined DKK 10 million (about $1.58 million) and former CEO Jan Jacobsen was sentenced to three and a half years in jail last year.

In January a company spokesman said the verdict was "strongly disputed by Monjasa in all its aspects." The case is expected to be resolved in November.

These stories are unrelated and final judgment has not yet been reached on any of them, but they all flag up the murky world in which marine fuel suppliers sometimes operate.

Road fuel and jet fuel suppliers generally manage to sell their products without encountering too many legal problems, but stories like these are not uncommon for the bunker industry.

In large part that's due to the world in which marine fuel suppliers operate. The bunker industry exists to take fuel oil -– a largely unwanted refining byproduct -– and deliver it at low prices to shipping, an industry that mostly works far away from the legal authorities in the high seas.

That environment has been an invitation for some in the industry – a minority, but a significant one – to operate in morally dubious ways on occasion.

Industry body the International Bunker Industry Association (IBIA) is trying to clean up the reputation of marine fuel suppliers, but it has a big job on its hands.

"We need to talk about ethics, and we need to talk about it right now," IBIA's CEO Justin Murphy said at the ARACON industry event in Rotterdam earlier this month. "The majority of us are acting ethically, within the spirit and the letter of the law."

"But we need to improve our reputation," he added. "It is regrettable that some individuals' illegal, unethical actions end up damaging the livelihoods of others that are caught up in the ripple effect."

One big question is whether the industry can improve its public image before 2020, when marine fuels will come under greater scrutiny as the International Maritime Organization's 0.5% sulfur limit for shipping comes into effect.

If non-compliance with the sulfur cap is widespread in the years after 2020, as some now expect, it may end up being the bunker industry that takes the blame.