Tale of a bunker agent

Since the new year many of you may have noticed a dearth of posting on my part. As those who follow CA closely know, I had moved to Japan to work at a firm that deals in the delivery of fuel oils. This has kept me extremely busy as I learned the ins and outs of the domestic fuel trade. Now that I am proficient in my work I have moved to a part-time schedule so that I may continue grinding away at my elusive master’s thesis which deals with the intersection of Japanese defense policy and energy security, particularly the importation of crude oil.

Today I would like to elaborate on what exactly I have been doing here on the docks of Japan. What follows is a relatively detailed (and dry) account of my experience as a bunker agent which will give you an idea of how crude oil makes it to your gas tank, and what keeps international shipping running.

First, the nitty gritty. My firm deals in fuel of the following types: fuel oil (FO), diesel oil (DO), gas oil (GO), regular gasoline (RG) and kerosene. We have three types of customers (factories, fuel distribution centers and international ships) and two types of jobs (ship-to-land and ship-to-ship) but first, let me outline the basic framework of the oil industry in Japan.

Unrefined crude arrives in Japan from the Middle East or Indonesia. The crude is refined into a variety of fuels at “31 refineries”:http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=696976&t=k&om=1 located around Japan. The refined fuel is then shipped by coastal tanker ships all over the country to storage facilities and distribution points. From there the fuel is transferred to tanker trucks that haul the product to local gas stations etc.

Three refineries (Cosmo, Showa Shell and Idemitsu) are located in the Ise Bay area, to the north of which lies Nagoya. The Nagoya area is highly industrialized with various heavy industries such as “steel”:http://www.ns-net.co.jp and “car”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_city production. The “Port of Nagoya”:http://www.port-of-nagoya.jp/english/ is ringed by numerous factories with piers and wharfs jutting out into the bay. There are generally two types of factories: the regional fuel distribution centers that I mentioned above, and factories that actually produce something. Production factories need fuel to power generators which drive the assembly lines. The piers are built to accommodate tanker ships. The pier will have a series of lines running from the massive fuel tanks inside the factory to valves that a docked tankers can easily connect to with a 6″ rubber hose.

Tanker barges carrying fuel from refineries both within Ise Bay and from far off ports will dock at the piers of these factories and proceed to pump hundreds and thousands of kiloliters of fuel in just a few hours. For example, a 3000kl tanker barge (which is pretty big) might take about four hours (at 800kl/hr pumping rate) to unload its cargo. If that is C fuel oil, which goes for about 50 yen a liter (discounting taxes), then we are talking about 150,000,000 yen or about 1.28 million dollars. Remember, C fuel oil is the cheapest sludge money can buy.

So, we are talking about a lot of cash here, nevermind the safety precautions that need to be taken and the mountain of paperwork that needs to be filled out for moving that type of cargo from one place to another. That is where I come in. I am the interface between the tanker barge and the receiving installation. The shipping company — the company that owns the barge — hires me to make sure that the delivery of the fuel goes smoothly. I am responsible for ensuring that safety measures are observed by all parties, and the filling out of all documents related to the delivery of the cargo. I will do everything from catching the lines to measuring and calculating the exact amount of fuel in the barge to bringing the seamen a copy of the local paper. This is an example of the ship-to-land type of job, dealing with factories or fuel distribution centers. The second type of job, ship-to-ship, is much more complicated.

Ise Bay is a fairly major shipping port for Japan. Every day countless cargo ships, car carriers, container ships and the like arrive in the ports of Ise Bay to load and unload cargo. Examples of such cargo include coal and coke, aluminum coils, farm equipment, “scrap”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/younghusband/361394916/, sand, timber, new and used cars, dried corn, bananas, ribar and crude oil. As ships are loading or unloading their cargo they usually require refueling. This involves their charterer calling a fuel consignment firm and ordering a certain amount of a specific type of fuel. The consignment firm then contacts the fuel shipping company which in turn contacts the refinery to see if the fuel is available. If it is available, the shipping company then lines up a tanker barge (which are sometimes owned by the individual operators, or other small companies) which will go to the refinery, load up, and then head to the ship that needs refueling. Lastly, the shipping company needs someone to oversee the delivery of the fuel, and that is where I step in.

“Bunkering” is the act of refueling a ship. The word comes from the old coal bunkers that used to keep coal dry on the ships of yore. A bunker agent boards the ship and acts as the director of the refueling process, giving orders to both the ship’s and the barge’s crew. For example, if the ship were docked, I would board via the gangway and make my way to the control room which is in the “engine room”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/younghusband/376068251/in/photostream/. I would find the Chief Engineer and have a quick meeting with him. The meeting consists of confirming the amount of fuel ordered, and determining the size of the fuel tanks on the ship to make sure that there is enough capacity ensuring no overflow will occur. I then make my way to the bunker station (where the fuel manifold for the ship is) and direct the deck crew and catching the lines of the tanker barge which comes alongside the ship. Once the barge is alongside, the ship’s crew will lower a Jacob’s ladder that the barge crew can climb to board. The barge crew will climb up the ladder while the captain of the barge will use a crane to raise the barge’s hose up to the level of bunker station. The barge’s crew will grab the hose and attach it to the main ship’s manifold in preparation of pumping. (See “this Flash animation”:http://www.owbunker.com/ for an illustration)

As you can imagine, some of the ships that come into port are pretty big, “much bigger”:http://www.add.gr/comp/jetoil/images/ship3a.jpg than the tanker barges. “Here you can see”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/younghusband/376072246/ a picture I took from the deck of a barge. In the center of the photo is the hose that snakes up to the bunker station of the ship, which happened to be shipping iron ore from Australia to a steel mill south of Nagoya. The longest ladder I have had to climb so far is about 60 feet. That isn’t that high up on land, but remember that you are on a rope ladder swaying in the wind and have the ocean or the hard deck of a tanker barge below you to fall on.

While the hose is being connected I will take the 3rd engineer down the ladder to the barge and measure the amount of fuel the ship brought to make sure that it fits the order. You can imagine being the engineer of a ship going into an unknown port in a strange country and having to depend on strangers that speak a language you don’t understand to properly fuel your ship so that you can make it to your next port and not get stuck at sea. Needless to say, there is a lot of mistrust between the ship and the the barge and it is my job to make sure everything is smooth. Once the 3rd and I confirm that the barge has the fuel required we commence pumping. At this point I make sure that the flow is okay and that there is no spillage. Then I proceed back to the control room where I type up the receipt and prepare the customs documents for the chief to sign once everything is finished. After the last bit of fuel is pumped I send the 3rd down for a “dry check”, to ensure that the barge pumped all the fuel it brought and isn’t trying to sneak away with some. This also covers my ass when the ship claims that all the fuel never made it to their tanks, when in fact they had opened the valve to a different tank to see if they can get more fuel out of me for free. Like I said before, there is a lot of mistrust between the ships and the the barges. Once I get the okay the barge can separate and I head down to the control room to get all my documents signed and stamped. That is the rundown of the ship-to-ship job. Sometimes the main ship is docked, and sometimes it is anchored at sea, which makes boarding all the more fun because it means I have to ride the tanker barge for an hour and a half out to the anchorage and be the first one up the rope ladder.

On average my small company (8 employees, four going out on ships) will have 3 or 4 ship-to-ship jobs and 3 or 4 ship-to-land jobs. That’s about $4M of fuel a day, which is a big responsibility — not to mention the massive damages if there ever was a spill. I have boarded about 140 different ships over the past three months. Mostly the crews are Filipino or Indian, but often officers are from Greece or Eastern Europe. It helps that I am a native English speaker with decent Japanese. The chief engineers all feel a lot better since they can communicate with me and with the barge captains through me. I am probably the only non-Japanese bunker agent working in Japan right now. What an honour. (;_;)

Well, if you made it this far in this long post I congratulate you, and will surely answer any questions you may have. Thanks for reading!