Players say the spike in bunker prices has highlighted problems faced by suppliers under pressure to extended credit lines to ship operators.

“Bunker buyers have to spend record amounts of money on fuel,” said Adam Dupre, Managing Director of Ocean Intelligence Pte. Ltd., the specialist international maritime credit reporting company based in Singapore.

“To keep fleets trading now involves running accounts on credit well in to seven and eight figures for players with even modest numbers of ships,” he told Bunkerworld.

Dupre emphasised the risks being run by suppliers expected to extend the credit they provided bunker buyers.

“As long as freight rates remain high the equation just about balances out,” he said.

“If rates slip, the credit crash that could result will be serious, not only in terms of the number of suppliers potentially affected, but also in terms of the amount of money involved.

“Companies could be going down owing suppliers eight and nine figure sums - if the suppliers collapse as a result, the loss will pass straight to the banks.”

He said traders and suppliers were aware that ship operators were spreading the weight of their bunker purchases across a number of suppliers – the equivalent of “maxing out” on their credit cards, he explained.

The consequence was that no single supplier had a handle on the total exposure of their customers at any given time.

“It seems simply to be a matter of time before something upsets the balance of world trade and freight rates begin to fall and the world bunker supply sector experiences an unprecedented credit crunch which only the strongest are likely to survive,” he warned.

The energy reporting service Platts on Tuesday quoted Singapore players as saying that although concerns about credit risks were growing, they were not seen as pressing “because the shipping industry is in good health.”

Ocean Intelligence Pte Ltd is a sister company to Bunkerworld.