Middle East Bunkering Convention 2023
Now in its eighth year, the Middle East Bunkering Convention (MEBC) returns to Dubai in February 2023 to once again offer focused and expert insights into the dynamic and increasingly complex global bunker market.
MEBC 2022 took place just weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and gave delegates a ‘real-time’ assessment of the potential impact on shipping and bunkering of this momentous event which has destabilised the global political order and continues to recalibrate the energy landscape.
MEBC 2023 will pick up the threads of this discussion and look to the future, with top level speakers offering their perspectives on sanctions, compliance, disrupted commodity and energy flows, shipping markets, and the outlook for energy security.
The events of the past year also sent bunker markets into a spin with VLSFO and gasoil prices spiralling to unseen levels and credit lines coming under mounting pressure. Conversely, high sulphur fuel oil has staged something of a comeback, with a wide Hi-5 spread validating the decisions of shipowners who opted for scrubber installations to comply with IMO 2020.
2023 will also be a year of new environmental regulations, with the introduction of the IMO’s CII and EEXI measures designed to spur shipping’s decarbonisation and national policies, such as the EU’s emissions trading system, seeking to accelerate the pace of shipping’s energy transition.
However, with global markets in flux new commercial opportunities are emerging, and the marine fuels industry and other stakeholders are moving quickly to identify and run with these. Suppliers and traders are moving into new locations, countries are putting together energy strategies which include plans for bunkering infrastructure, ports and terminal operators are developing ambitious expansion programmes, and shipowners are looking at the fuel options for fleet renewal.
In addition, the challenges of fuel quality and quantity remain firmly on the agenda, and digitalisation is proving to be a disruptor – and enabler – in tackling these twin issues.
All these changes are creating a highly competitive and perhaps leaner bunker market and MEBC 2023 will be one of the first key conferences next year to discuss how the sector is evolving and the new directions it may take – from an ‘up close’ regional point of view and at a global level
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