Working Together Towards Supply Robustness

These solutions came to light at BP Marine’s

Linking the Supply Chain

event staged in Hamburg.

Attended by more than 50 delegates and representing over 35 companies, ship owners, managers and senior executives came together to hear industry experts advise on the marine lubricant supply crisis and to discuss how the industry can move forward and embrace the challenges posed by the tightening of availability.

Jill Nguyen, managing director of BP Marine Lubricants said, ‘Managing supply risk is an issue for every shipping company and partner throughout the value chain. Customers must anticipate and forecast demand whilst suppliers need to tackle supply issues and continue rebuilding infrastructure and inventories.’

Top of the agenda were discussions about the lubricant demand-supply equation, the complexities surrounding the production of lubricants, changes occurring within the base oil and additive industries, low sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) and the introduction of the new North Sea SECA.

In addition to emphasising the customers’ role in volume management, BP Marine Lubricants also heralded new technologies and product development as crucial to addressing the supply issue. In particular, there was a demonstration of several solutions developed by BP, including tools for constant monitoring of fleet requirements which enable BP to ensure optimal supply to vessels.

Securing supply for the existing fleet and additional new builds was on everyone’s mind. Ship owners left the event with enhanced clarity on future scenarios and solutions for handling the increased demand.

Gerhard Binder, managing partner at Aug. Bolten said, ‘Supply security worldwide is one of the main issues facing the marine industry in 2007 so the Linking the Supply Chain event was timely and extremely informative.