Petrotrin bunkering resumes

In a media release on Tuesday, Petrotrin stated that the vessel will be on hire to the company for a one year period initially, while arrangements are being made for purchase of the company’s own double hull bunker barge to replace the Marabella - a single hull barge which was decommissioned in 2015 September. According to the FleetMon website, the Valme B is registered in Panama and has a dead weight of 6936 tonnes and was built in 2008. The ship’s destination was listed as Pointea- Pierre, Trinidad six days ago.

Petrotrin said the wet lease charter arrangement allows company representatives to be on board the vessel along with the vessel’s own crew to deliver bunkers to ships in local waters as well as offshore Trinidad.

It also allows for the possibility of bunker/ cargo delivery regionally.

“The resumption of bunkering operations is expected to increase Petrotrin’s revenue by moving some cargo from the international market back into the regional bunker market. Bunker deliveries are expected to commence within the first week of 2017 April.” Bunker fuel is the generic term given to any fuel poured into a ship’s bunkers to power its engines. Deep sea cargo ships typically burn the heavy, residual oil left over after gasoline, diesel and other light hydrocarbons are extracted from crude oil during the refining process