SAL Heavy Lift has partnered with Inatech, a unit of Glencore, to ensure compliance with the 0.5 percent sulphur cap and optimise bunker strategies.
Inatech provides cloud-based energy trading risk management (ETRM) and fuel management software to the oil trading and marine industries. Anticipating a spike in fuel price volatility and supply dislocation from the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) new sulphur emission rules, the company designed the Smart Trader platform. This enables companies to track their vessels on an integrated system that displays fuel levels on board, news alerts and live pricing data from S&P Global Platts.
The tool synchronises with Inatech’s Shiptech platform, which enables emission control area compliance and can calculate a fuel’s energy content.
“Smart Trader and Shiptech are now a crucial part of our operational infrastructure, ensuring that we are fully compliant and have complete visibility on all aspects of our fleets and bunker buying,” said Danny Stutzbecher, head of bunkers at SAL Heavy Lift. “This has been an important part of our preparation for [Sulphur] 2020.”
According to Inatech, Smart Trader data covers refined wholesale and retail marine fuels at more than 350 ports worldwide, along with regional indices, spreads, and moving averages. Potential suppliers are checked for quality and credit references to control counter-party risk.
“We are going through the most significant overhaul of regulations in a generation and most shipping companies are using the transition phase to rethink how they manage risk and costs,” Inatech’s senior vice president Alok Sharma said. “Proactive energy management is key to ensuring competitiveness – bunker procurement is now at the heart of a shipping company’s strategy.”
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