4th International Bunkering Conference Hails Kochi Model

KOCHI:
The fourth edition of the International Bunkering Conference resolved to take Kochi to the state of a global bunker destination like Fujairah and Singapore.
The deliberations held during the conference will pave the way for improving the ease of doing business in bunkering at Kochi, towards achieving easier regulatory regime, ensuring efficient operational performance, high quality bunker and accurate measurement etc.
The Conference held at the Taj Gateway Hotel, Kochi was presided over by P Raveendran, Chairman, Cochin Port Trust. AV Ramana, Deputy Chairman, Cochin Port Trust, P Nageswara Rao, Chief
Commissioner, Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax, Rajnish Mehta, Exe. Director, HPCL, Prasad K.Panicker, Exe. Director, BPCL-KR and P.S.Mony, GM, IOCL highlighted the growing importance of Cochin Port as a bunkering destination during the inaugural Session.
The speakers in the Business Session presented perspectives on Kochi as a bunker destination, challenges in bunker sales, bunkering business in India and the perspective of the buyers. The participants hailed the Kochi model in promotion of bunkering trade and acknowledged that the same is widely discussed and appreciated in the shipping sector in India.
Topics like Regulatory perspective of Bunker quality control, prospects of LNG bunkering in India, legal issues in bunkering and matters pertaining to lab testing and quality control of bunker fuels were the points of discussion in the Technical Session.
The participants called for facilitating floating storage of bunker for promoting off port limit bunkering.
The conference was attended by about 140 delegates from the bunkering sector, including Mumbai and Dubai. All the major oil manufacturers, physical oil suppliers, traders, surveyors, bunker buyers and barge operators attended the event.
The Port and regulatory authorities took note of the suggestions and proposals that came up in the conference and assured to ease the procedures for increasing the bunker business in Kochi.