{"id":2769,"date":"2026-10-16T09:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T04:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2769"},"modified":"2026-10-16T09:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T04:04:10","slug":"iran-war-puts-pakistans-gwadar-port-in-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2769","title":{"rendered":"Iran war puts Pakistan\u2019s Gwadar Port in focus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The US-Israeli war on Iran<\/a> has altered bunker buying patterns for shippers globally as they turned to more spot and shorter-term \u200bpurchases to cope with volatile prices while exploring more alternative locations for supply security, industry executives said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than \u200cseven months since the start of the conflict with Iran, prices of marine fuels remained well over 70% versus pre-war levels, according to data from bunker traders.<\/p>\n

Rerouting and diversions of vessels due to blockades at key waterways in the Middle East have also driven shippers to diversify refuelling locations, making them \u200bless inclined to lock in a longer-term contracts at one particular port, the executives said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe frequency of stems (spot purchases) is \u200bgetting higher because a lot of owners will bunker the minimum to reach the next port \u2060if the market shoots up,\u201d said Peter Grunwaldt, chief executive officer at Seascale Energy and head of bunkering at tanker company Hafnia, \u200bon the sidelines of the Singapore International Bunkering conference.<\/p>\n

Spot purchases give more flexibility to the shipowner, who decides whether to buy bunkers \u200bin that instance, depending on the daily price, suppliers said. In contrast, if they lock into a longer term contract, they will have to lift the agreed volume regardless of how the price swings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen prices are elevated, you have this notion that if prices fall tomorrow, you don\u2019t want to be \u200btoo exposed,\u201d said Mikkel Kannegaard, chief operating officer at Bunker Holding, the world\u2019s largest bunker seller by volume.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we have seen \u200ba trend where longer-term contracts have become less common,\u201d he told Reuters, adding that bunker trade has become more complex amid a more fragmented market.<\/p>\n

Choong \u200cZhen \u2060Mao, executive director at Singapore-based Equatorial Marine Fuel<\/a>, said the duration of term contracts with buyers had shortened to a quarter or even a month, versus longer terms like six months or one year, before the war.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Alternative bunker ports<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Besides breaking up the size of bunker purchases, shippers are also turning to alternative locations to seek bunker supplies and refuel as hostilities around the United Arab Emirates\u2019 Fujairah port, \u200bwhich used to be a top \u200bsupplier, intensified, the executives said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround \u2060the Arabian Gulf in particular, traditional bunkering patterns are being torn apart,\u201d said Seascale\u2019s Grunwaldt.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiversions from Fujairah have clearly driven more enquiries to surrounding ports, so we now bunker in more ports than \u200bwe used to,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cPorts that were only used sporadically before, such as Port Louis, Colombo \u200band Salalah, are \u2060now being used more frequently,\u201d he said, referring to ports in Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Oman.<\/p>\n

Bunker Holding<\/a>\u2019s Kannegaard said he had seen more demand emerging in Africa and South Asia.<\/p>\n

In response to the Middle East disruption, Vitol began bunkering at the Gwadar Port in Pakistan in July, \u2060offering a \u200blocation outside the Strait of Hormuz from which to serve customers operating in \u200bthe Gulf region.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiversification is essential, both to manage today\u2019s disruptions and to build longer-term resilience,\u201d Vitol\u2019s Head of Asia Kieran Gallagher said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the near term, that means broadening \u200bgeographic sources of supply and developing new trade routes for conventional fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US-Israeli war on Iran has altered bunker buying patterns for shippers globally as they turned to more spot and shorter-term \u200bpurchases to cope with volatile prices while exploring more alternative locations for supply security, industry executives said. More than \u200cseven months since the start of the conflict with Iran, prices of marine fuels remained well over 70% versus pre-war levels, according to data from bunker traders. Rerouting and diversions of vessels due to blockades at key waterways in the Middle East have also driven shippers to diversify refuelling locations,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}