Economics
Shipping Loses as Faster Trade Means Record Fuel Costs: Freight
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Accelerating world trade means the merchant fleet will burn the most fuel oil ever in 2013, driving ship owners’ biggest cost to a record and boosting profit for Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc. and other suppliers.
Demand for the so-called bunker fuel will rise 2.2 percent to 3.37 million barrels a day, according to JBC Energy GmbH, a Vienna-based research company. Prices will gain by the same amount to an all-time high of $690 a metric ton, according to McQuilling Services LLC, an industry consultant based in Garden City, New York. Shares of Aegean Marine, the largest independent fuel supplier, will jump 75 percent in 12 months, according to the average of four analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.