Image credit: Monjasa

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Bunker firm Monjasa believes it is well placed to meet the increasingly rigorous requirements of fuel buyers and banks, and the upcoming changes to maritime legislation with the global sulphur cap in 2020.

Monjasa was the first bunker company to obtain combined ISO certifications in quality management (ISO 9001), environmental management (ISO 14001) and occupational health and safety management (OHSAS 18001), but insists that rather than resting on its laurels, it has continued to look at ways of improving its internal policies since securing its first ISO certification in 2014.

Speaking to Bunker Index, COO Svend Stenberg Molholt explained: "Our customers are asking more and more about HSEQ [Health & Safety, Environment and Quality], our operating model which is backed by ISO certifications and our compliance measures. As an example, some of our biggest customers run their own compliance programmes... they vet us on how we manage everything."

"The market in general and our customers are being more and more focused on what bunker companies are doing to ensure compliance. So you can argue that the demand for compliance and HSEQ is increasing, and we are already able to match that."

Molholt noted that stakeholders such as banks were also acting with more scrutiny, which had resulted in "a higher demand on the compliance side".

Discussing the issue of US sanctions, Molholt explained that "if you are doing a transaction in US dollars with a ship that has called at Iran in the last 30 days, you need to make sure to know what's okay and what's not okay".

Looking further ahead to the global sulphur cap in 2020, Molholt noted that the new regulations would lead to higher bunker costs for buyers, and that, with more money at stake, "the incentive to non-compliance also goes up, and therefore we need to manage it".

"We are seeing that customers are demanding more, stakeholders like financial institutions or other regulators are demanding more, and the stakes are going to be higher as we approach 2020. So that combination of these three things means we need to focus on it," Molholt added.