IBIA rallies for industry support to achieve ambitions to support bunker industry

The International Bunker Industry Association (IBIA) on Thursday (3 December) said it will be implementing structural changes and functional improvements to better serve the marine fuels sector. 

IBIA Chairman, Henrik Zederkof, has earlier outlined three focus areas for IBIA: 

1. Implement a new organizational structure to enhance IBIA’s global reach.
2. Push for the adoption of broadly similar bunker licensing schemes in major bunker hubs world-wide.
3. Pro-actively engage in achieving the IMO’s CO2 emission reduction goals.

As such, the bunkering association said it is working on these ambitions in tandem and reports its progress in the following statement:

We aim to set up five Regional Boards to improve IBIA’s ability to represent interests in specific regions. We have already established a Regional Board for Asia and we expect to have a Regional Board for Africa by the end of 2020, and for an Americas Regional Board to be up and running early 2021.

We have engaged with port authorities, other industry associations and our members world-wide, to seek more conformity in bunker procedures and a level playing field through bunker licensing, and we see this as a driver for industry improvements in transparency, compliance and safety. 

IBIA was a key contributor to ensuring a successful transition to the global 0.50% sulphur limit for bunker fuel through our input to the IMO’s guidelines for 2020, as well as industry collaboration and information services. We are now providing a platform for our members to facilitate dialogue about the options so we can play our part in the transition to a carbon-neutral future, including through continued engagement in IMO discussions.

As a principle, IBIA has always ensured a low membership fee and balanced the cost of running the association. Covid-19 has challenged this concept as we have not been able to host any physical events since February 2020, and we cannot do so until we are confident that it is safe.

We have therefore taken steps to ensure we can achieve our ambitions through a fundraising campaign, reaching out to our members for support. Our request has been very positively received and we have already secured a commitment for 40% of the campaign objective. We are very grateful to our supporters who see the value in IBIA, their contributions have given us a positive start to the campaign we had only hoped for.   

We are deeply grateful to KPI OceanConnect, Fratelli Cosulich, BMS United, Energy Petrol, A/S Dan-Bunkering Ltd, Glander International Bunkering, Monjasa A/S, Maersk Oil Trading Ltd and Bunker One A/S, for their substantial contributions.

Thanks to this support, we are confident that we will have a solid foundation to work with our members and industry partners in setting, and achieving, ambitions for the future.

Photo credit: IBIA
Published: 4 December, 2020