Last week Singapore hosted the world’s largest bunkering event, SIBCON 2022. After a four year hiatus due to the coronavirus converted the 2020 version into a virtual event, more than 1,800 delegates congregated at Resorts World Sentosa to discuss the current market trends, decarbonisation and what lies ahead for the marine fuels industry.

“It was very much an upbeat affair returning to an in-person event there for the first time since 2018. Practically everyone in the industry in attendance, with many familiar faces from around the world who we had not seen in person for some time,” commented Colin Holloway, Global Head – Technical.

With decarbonisation targets continuing, there has been an ever-growing trend focusing on the ‘greener’ future of the industry at events, with SIBCON following suit, “The main theme of the SIBCON conference was alternative fuels and decarbonisation. Biofuels and LNG both featured heavily,” continued Colin, a view echoed by many others who attended as practically all company branding in the exhibition emphasised ‘green’ themes. Angus Offer, Branch Manager – Australia, noted, “Alternative fuels dominated the conference content, main messages were that collaboration/cooperation was required all down the supply to customer chain in order to implement changes, that big shippers had markedly different views and that we were some way from scalable alternatives. Also something remarked several times - the end consumer will pay!”

Cockett Group attended with seven delegates including the aforementioned Colin Holloway and Angus Offer, Commercial Heads and Traders from our Singapore office, with all expressing an enjoyment at being able to meet contemporaries from around the industry face-to-face. “The highlight for me was a lunch with the IBIA Management Board, where the formation of a Regional IBIA Board for the Middle East was discussed,” stated Colin, and Angus continued, “The resounding sentiment from SIBCON 2022 was that it was great to get back to a face-to-face conference after several years. ANZ suppliers were well represented, ironically I was seeing many of them in Singapore before seeing them locally! It was also a great opportunity to meet some of my Cockett colleagues as well as Singapore and European-based customers.”