Josh Lowell

One of the widely-held expectations concerning the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) 2020 sulfur cap on marine fuels was that the price of gasoil/diesel would spike in the opening months of 2020, as demand for gasoil in the bunker market would strain existing supplies and push prices higher. Six weeks into the new regulatory regime and […]

Back in March, ClipperData unveiled its first forecast for marine fuel demand between 2020 and 2025. In recent weeks, we have updated our projection ahead of the IMO’s forthcoming 0.5 percent sulfur cap. In our initial projection, we forecasted that shipowners in 2020 would retreat from high sulfur fuel oil (HSFO) and move to marine […]

Uncertainty continues to surround the forthcoming IMO 2020 sulfur cap, even with a mere five and a half months to go before the January 1, 2020, start of the regulation. What will the makeup of marine fuel demand be after the sulfur cap goes into effect? Will compatibility concerns limit market appeal for low sulfur […]

In an effort to tackle climate change, member states of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) have agreed to enact tougher carbon standards on newbuild ships two years earlier than planned. At the 74th meeting of the Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC) in London last month, members drafted amendments to International Convention for the Prevention of […]

ClipperData projects what the marine fuel market will look like following the IMO 2020.

Major container lines are facing higher costs due to an increase in expected bunker fuel prices from IMO 2020. To cover their costs, container lines are proposing Bunker Adjustment Factors (BAFs). BAFs are tariffs added to base freight rates that take into account changes in fuel prices, the major component of operating costs.

A look at heavy-sweet crude flows ahead of IMO 2020

LSFO in particular has been of interest from the bunker industry due to its status as a relatively new marine fuel. In a recent blog post, I highlighted issues surrounding several US patents that concern the blending of hydrocarbons to create IMO-compliant LSFO. In this post, I take a look at another concern with LSFO: Compatibility.