Kaohsiung bunker prices

Kaohsiung is a barge port, and the port company's bunkering guidelines say where a barge may work: inside the harbour at any wharf, buoy or stretch of water the Kaohsiung branch approves, and within a five-point block of the No. 2 anchorage set out by coordinate in the same document. The anchorage is the harder of the two to reach. A supplier must have six months of bunkering behind it, with no spill and no safety incident in that time, before it may be authorised to work there, and a management fee is charged for supply in either location, at a rate the port does not publish. Barges report to the vessel traffic centre before and after every sortie and hold a VHF watch throughout, channel 11 at the anchorage, 14 north of the Cianjhen River and 12 south of it, and may ask for a tug to help them come alongside at anchor.

Two rules cost money and time. An oil boom must be laid around every operation, and CPC bills it per delivery: US$338 at the Intercontinental Container Terminal Phase II berths S01 to S19, US$89 elsewhere in the port. Work stops at Beaufort force 5 or a 2.5-metre sea, and barges still in port are refused departure. Night stems at the anchorage are allowed but need extra lighting, a dedicated watchkeeper and video kept a month.

CPC's schedule lists three grades: MGO at 0.1% sulphur maximum, low-sulphur MF-180 at 0.5%, and high-sulphur MF-380, which it sells at no other Taiwanese port. There is no 380 cSt low-sulphur residual on that list. Neither the port company nor CPC publishes a maximum stem or a required notice period.