Antwerp-based Belgian Trading & Bunkering (BTB) achieved record bunker volumes in March, according to a company announcement.

Parent firm Groep De Wit said it celebrated the achievement by providing pizza to its employees, including those working aboard vessels, adding that it delivered the food to ships to ensure crew members could participate in the celebration alongside office-based staff.

"In March, we achieved a record volume of bunkers with BTB, a great result that we could not have achieved without the entire team," the owner of Belgian Trading & Bunkering stated.

Groep De Wit emphasized its approach of including all personnel in the recognition and described the gesture as "a small token for a great effort", thanking both onboard and office-based employees for their daily commitment and team spirit.

Founded in 1996, Belgian Trading & Bunkering (BTB) sells and supplies marine fuel to seagoing vessels in Antwerp and across the wider Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) region, performing deliveries via barge and road tank wagon.

The milestone, revealed by Groep De Wit without specifying the exact volume of bunkers delivered, follows recent sales figures at Port of Antwerp-Bruges of 2.507 million tonnes in the first quarter of 2026 — up 703,910, or 39%, on the previous three-month period and the highest quarterly result since at least 2014.

In contrast, bunker sales in Rotterdam during Q1 2026 plummeted 612,145 to 1.814 million tonnes — the lowest figure since at least 2009. It follows January's implementation of the Fuel Transition Obligation (Brandstoftransitieverplichting) in the Netherlands to comply with the EU’s third Renewable Energy Directive, Renewable Energy Directive III (RED III).

The Fuel Transition Obligation imposes a quantified GHG‑reduction requirement on bunker suppliers to either supply eligible low‑carbon fuels that generate ZRE sea emission reduction units (Zeeemissiereductie eenheid) — where each ZRE unit represents a tonne of GHG reduction versus a fossil baseline — or purchase ZRE units from others if they do not supply enough low‑carbon fuel themselves.

Suppliers then have to demonstrate, via annual reporting to the Dutch Emissions Authority, that they have met their obligations with low-carbon fuel supplied or purchased ZRE units.

The cost of meeting RED III obligations in the Netherlands has resulted in suppliers incorporating these additional outlays into their pricing since the start of the year, which in turn appears to have led to volumes shifting away from Rotterdam to locations such as Belgium, where a RED III compliance system is yet to be implemented.