Infospectrum Insights

Over the past ten years, legal and regulatory bodies — particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States — have enhanced their expectations of compliance risk management.

Bunkering has always needed finance to cover expansion and bridge cash flow gaps in a notoriously liquidity-demanding sector, and banks have often been keen to provide it. While the impacts on the multiple unfortunate creditors of the recent collapses in Singapore's bunker sector are known, the indirect impact may be more significant — it may undermine confidence in the sector at a time when the bunkering industry seeks liquidity in the run-up to 2020.

This month, we spoke with Nicolas Defillion, Senior Analyst at Infospectrum’s Oxford office, who shared with us how he first entered the shipping industry, what a typical day looks like, and what he gets up to outside of work.

This month, we spoke with Gemma McSweeney, Head of Client Services for Infospectrum’s UK offices. She revealed how her career began and why she loves being a part of the Infospectrum team.

Infospectrum is seeing an increase in the number of occasions its clients are being asked to pay third parties for goods or services, i.e. to pay a party with whom they have not contracted. Such requests are most commonly made in relation to payment of freight or bunkers. This article explores the underlying motivations as to why a client may be asked to pay a third party and the possible legal ramifications.

This month, we caught up with Dean Hilton, Analyst and General Manager at Infospectrum’s Australia office, to learn more about his broad background and extensive shipping expertise.

The International Energy Agency called the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) 2020 global sulphur limit ‘easily the most dramatic change in fuel specifications in any oil product market on such a large scale’. How will the regulation impact the marine industry’s risk management landscape?

For decades, Infospectrum’s clients have used the Post Dated Cheque (PDC) as a means of payment security. Even in these increasingly cashless/paperless times, payment by cheque remains an important part of the risk management of liquidity-strained clients in certain countries. Perhaps the most effective use of PDCs has been in the United Arab Emirates. Here we look at how this came to be, and whether it remains a useful tool.

While bunker price forecasts in the current politico-economic environment are akin to staring at tea leaves, the next 12 months are expected to see further increases in prices for HSFO (already up 35-40% in the last 12 months), LSFO and distillates. On top of that, all participants in the bunker markets (to a greater or lesser degree) have been impacted by higher finance costs as LIBOR rates increase, with small to medium-sized bunker players struggling to secure finance at suitably attractive terms.

Infospectrum’s expert team spans across the globe. This month, we spoke with Felix Yamasato, Senior Analyst at Infospectrum’s US office, who gave us insight into his varied role at Infospectrum and how he maintains a strong work-life balance.