The management of naval risk and the strict oversight of operations in the Central Atlantic have consolidated the position of the Maritime Administration against pressures from the commercial sector. The technical debate regarding fuel supply in the Canary archipelago highlights a clear separation of functions between port security regulation and economic exploitation. In response to a cumulative contraction of 7% in the volume of bunkering recorded in the Port of Las Palmas during the first five months of the current year—a drop of 78,000 metric tons that brings the total operational amount to 1.16 million metric tons—the regulatory body rejects any simplification of a commercial nature.
Ignacio Gallego, maritime captain of Las Palmas, grounds the criteria of the regulatory body in the strict legal framework that imposes the Maritime Captains’ Instruction of April 2019, in effect for the past seven years. This sector-specific regulation establishes mandatory requirements for propulsion redundancy that the supply unit in question fails to meet categorically. The Captains’ directive stipulates bindingly that any barge dedicated to commercial operations in waters under its jurisdiction must have a double screw design with its respective propellers, complemented symmetrically by two independent rudders.
This mechanical configuration of double screw and double rudder is not classified as merely a constructive recommendation or a commercial option, but as a technical requirement essential to ensure optimal maneuverability control during critical phases of approach and subsequent operation alongside large merchant vessels in the anchorage area. The redundant propulsion system drastically reduces the risk of collision due to loss of steering in the event of an unforeseen mechanical failure in the primary propulsion plant, ensuring that the crew maintains vector control of the barge and can autonomously return to the inner dock without compromising the collective safety of the facility.
The regulatory asymmetry that allows this same vessel to operate in Santa Cruz de Tenerife but denies it customs and operational clearance in Las Palmas is due to structural differences in hydrography, oceanography, and traffic density of each harbor. Las Palmas presents a significantly higher intensity of transatlantic vessel movements and an outer anchorage area exposed to much more severe open-sea weather conditions than the Tenerife port, which has a more sheltered natural harbor. According to the inspecting authority, the requirements of Las Palmas do not respond to bureaucratic or opportunistic arbitrariness but are aligned with the high risk governance standards implemented in major global distribution centers such as the Port of Algeciras.
The Maritime Administration has formally reminded that the powers of the Captains are exclusively confined to overseeing navigability conditions, preventing marine pollution, and protecting human life at sea, while granting the final commercial license is the responsibility of the Port Authority. Thus, the uninterrupted validity of the 2019 ordinance undermines the argument that technical regulations are the cause of market contraction, given that historical peaks of growth in fuel supply registered in La Luz over the last seven years were achieved under this same framework of restrictions and controls.
Finally, the technical analysis of the authority emphasizes that exogenous meteorological factors explain more accurately the loss of tonnage in the Gran Canaria dock, which closed the month of May with a volume of 222,707 tons. Successive fronts of bad weather and severe maritime instability have forced the suspension and postponement of bunkering operations outside sheltered waters for consecutive weeks. Only under exceptional scenarios of documented congestion or urgent supply needs has the Maritime Captaincy discreetly authorized the operation of units without mechanical redundancy, always imposing the mandatory assistance of a pilot and the permanent escort of a harbor tug throughout the nautical maneuver as compensatory risk mitigation measures.
The presidency of the Port Authority of Las Palmas has linked this loss of market share to the ruling of the peripheral Maritime Administration, which denies the authorization of operations to a specific tanker that does provide services at the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. This vessel performs its product loading operations at the terminals of Gran Canaria but executes the physical supply and corresponding billing in the neighboring province, which has capitalized on this flow with a growth of 30% in its distributed volume, accumulating 379,791 tons.
