S’pore not renewing Universal Energy’s bunker supply licence

SINGAPORE: Singapore’s port authority will not renew the bunker fuel supplier and craft operator licences of Universal Energy Pte Ltd, one of the biggest ship fuelling operators in the city-state, a company director said yesterday.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) was withdrawing the licences, said Universal Energy director Hua Tan. He said the firm received notification of the move on Monday, without specifying when the licence withdrawals take effect.

“This has caught us by surprise (and comes) despite our appeal and explanations,” the director told Reuters.

The MPA did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Singapore, the biggest global hub for ship refuelling, this year became the world’s first harbour to mandate the use of mass-flow-meters to minimise inaccuracies and errors in measuring the delivered amount of marine fuels (bunkers).

The Universal Energy withdrawals follows the MPA’s decision effective Aug 14 to revoke the bunker craft operator licence of Panoil Petroleum. Checks on Panoil Petroleum’s bunker barges revealed that unauthorised alterations were made on board five tankers operated by the company.

Universal Energy last year was ranked by the MPA as the third-biggest marine fuel supplier in Singapore by volume, operating 11 bunker barges, two of which it owns and nine it has on charter.

As of Aug 15, there were 58 licensed bunker fuel suppliers here, MPA data showed.