The smooth flow of global maritime trade once again clashes with the physical limits of infrastructure in the western Mediterranean. Shipowners operating along the Gibraltar Strait corridor are facing severe operational delays due to extreme saturation at supply points.
Twenty-one vessels remain anchored in Gibraltar Bay, waiting to receive fuel. The port agent MH Bland reports delays of between 24 and 48 hours in deliveries from suppliers in the British colony.
Algeciras also hit by delays
Algeciras faces a similar situation. Waiting times for bunkering along the Spanish coast range from 12 to 18 hours of delay. Industry operators attribute the collapse to an aggressive overbooking campaign by local supplying firms.
Securing fuel at this strategic bottleneck now requires extraordinary planning. Shipping lines must close their reserves at least 15 days in advance to ensure provisioning for their fleets without penalties on their commercial routes.
Las Palmas and scheduled patience in the mid-Atlantic
With saturation at mainland ports, logistical pressure is shifting south. The port of Tenerife and Las Palmas offer a more predictable supply environment for Canary Islands bunkering, although they require wide operating margins for procurement departments at shipping companies. Buyers need to anticipate their orders by 7 to 10 days to secure loading of high-sulfur fuel oil (HSFO), low-sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO) and marine gasoil (LSMGO).
This operational stability in the Canary Islands contrasts with the volatility of the central Mediterranean. Off the coast of Malta, shipping operators are forced to check stock availability 5 to 7 days before the estimated arrival of their vessels. The Maltese market is dealing with a slight shortage of marine gasoil, slowing loading operations, with logistics recovery forecasts for the coming weeks. On the Iberian Peninsula, Lisbon maintains stable availability across all fuel grades, while Barcelona requires reserves a week in advance.
A stationary continent and shortages of heavy fuel
Bunkering in West, Southern and Eastern Africa paints a picture of chronic structural scarcity. The supply of heavy fuel oil remains at low levels across essentially all port systems on the African continent. Securing fuel for immediate deliveries at hubs such as Lomé in Togo and Walvis Bay in Namibia has become a complex task, forcing shipping lines to operate with minimum delivery lead times of seven days.
The continent’s Atlantic coast shows uneven realities. Luanda, in Angola, stands out as one of the region’s most agile points, requiring only 4 to 5 days’ notice to dispatch VLSFO and LSMGO cargoes. In Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, low-sulfur fuel supply demands 5 to 7 days of prior waiting.
Eastern Africa’s coast reproduces the same bottleneck pattern and prolonged waits. In Durban and Algoa Bay in South Africa, immediate deliveries are virtually blocked. Maritime companies need to issue supply notices with a 5 to 7 day window to load their fuel tanks. The same operational rigidity applies to the ports of Nacala and Maputo in Mozambique, as well as Port Louis in Mauritius, where VLSFO reserves must be formalised a week in advance to prevent container ship standstills.
Northern Europe and the limits of liquid efficiency
In northern Europe, the usual logistics efficiency of the ARA region (Amberes–Rotterdam–Amsterdam) faces immediate operational constraints. Buyers of marine fuel must schedule reserves 5 to 7 days in advance to obtain guaranteed coverage from local distributors. Added to this lower market fluidity was a chemical incident at the Deurganck quay in Antwerp, where a hydrofluoric acid spill from a container onboard a cargo vessel forced a temporary suspension of port traffic. Terminals have returned to normal operations, with the only exception of the MPET terminal.
Independently managed fuel oil inventories in the ARA region hub rose by 9% so far in July compared with the average of the previous month. This stock build-up coincides with a notable drop in daily fuel oil imports in the North Sea control area, which fell to 175,000 barrels per day compared with the 215,000 barrels imported in June. Most of the processed crude flow came from refineries located in Colombia, the Dutch Caribbean and France. Diesel (gasoil) imports in the region also contracted substantially, reaching 84,000 barrels per day in July versus 188,000 barrels recorded during the preceding month.
The article “Bunkering: Repostar en Canarias ante la saturación Gibraltar de cara al 18 de julio” was first published on encanarymaritime.com.
