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Chinese marine fuel supply firm Brightoil is boosting its presence in Singapore, the world's largest bunker market.

The Shenzhen-headquartered company has leased 50,000 cubic metres of storage space at Singapore's Horizon Terminal in order to support the company's bunkering operations at the city-state.

The new lease replaces an expired lease at Singapore's Universal Terminal, which the company had as a short-term solution to its quest for storage space. At the terminal, Brightoil was permited to store and blend up to 80,000 cubic metres of its fuel oil cargoes there.

Horizon Terminal

Located on Singapore's Jurong Island, Horizon Singapore Terminals last year completed its third expansion phase , adding 270,000 cubic metres of clean petroleum products storage capacity. The total capacity at the storage terminal now stands at 1.24 million cubic metres.

Constructed at a total cost of US$306 million, the storage terminal comprises 59 bulk liquid storage tanks with sizes ranging from 6,000 cubic metres to 45,000 cubic metres, and four marine jetties. The facility is capable of handling the full range of refined petroleum products and offers a wide range of value-added services with its state-of-the-art heating and blending systems.

Vessels

Brightoil, already a leading supplier in the Chinese market, began bunkering operations in Singapore at the beginning of the year after being granted a bunker license by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA).

The company is understood to have chartered a very large crude carrier (VLCC) for storing and blending fuel oil off Singapore for a three-month period.

Plans are also afoot to boost operations further with the addition of two bunker tankers in Singapore.

The company took delivery of its first ocean-going tanker in Singapore in January.

The double-hulled aframax oil tanker, which was purchased in November 2009 for US$52.5million, has a capacity of 107,500 dwt and an overall length of 243.8m.

Last month Brightoil entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with Rasos Shipping Co. Ltd. to purchase its second ocean-going oil tanker at a price of US$52.5million.

The newly-acquired double-hulled aframax oil tanker has a capacity of 107,500 DWT, coupled with 3 sets of cargo pumps, each of which having a discharge rate up to 3,000 m3/hr and totaling a maximum discharge rate of 9,000 m3/hr.

The vessel is expected to be delivered by the end of April 2010.

In January, Brightoil Petroleum (Holdings) Ltd. Chairman Sit Kwong Lam said it was in the market to buy six to eight tankers between 50,000 deadweight tonnes (dwt) and 300,000 dwt in size, all during the course of 2010.

The plan forms part of Brightoil's strategy to expand its marine transportation business, aiming to take advantage of the current low price of oil tankers during the current economic climate.

"The group reckons the timing to purchase an oil tanker is highly attractive given the current price of a newly-built high quality tanker vessel is down from around US$80million in 2008. In addition, the group also anticipates benefits from the gradual recovery of the shipping industry," Kwong Lam said in a statement earlier this year.

Brightoil is understood to be planning to spend around US$500 million to acquire the new oil tankers.