• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.15-28
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• 2022

Bunkering refers to the supply of bunker fuel necessary for the ship operation, as well as minimizing the price and supply cost of fuel itself, and includes supplying good quality fuel oil in a timely manner and at the optimal port. Bunkering is an important criterion in terms of cost for shipping companies because bunkering involves a significant cost to the purchaser of bunkering from the time of initial purchase. This study aims to prioritize selection criteria for tramper companies to call port for bunkering. For this study, the variables were selected by analyzing the common criteria such as price, location, bunker quality and service and infrastructure etc. employed in previous studies. The AHP method was employed to prioritize the criteria in order. As a result of the analysis, the high level factors appeared in the order of price, location, bunkering quality and port service and infrastructure factors. The importance of price criterion and location criterion was found to be high. In the low level criterion of price, the bunker price per MT was ranked first in importance. In terms of location criteria, the location on the main trade route was high. In the low criteria of bunker quality and port service, the bunkering available types and bunker quality were found to be important factors, and in the low level criteria of infrastructure, anchorage and availability of bunkering during loading and discharging and port security factors were found to be important criteria. This study provides the guidelines for research designed to compare the bunkering port selection factors and to derive their importance suggesting the ways to enhance competitiveness as a bunkering port.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.359-366
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• 2022

While the Forward Freight Agreement (FFA) has emerged as an effective hedging tool since early 1990, the basis risk and cash flow distortions have been addressed as obstacles to the active use of FFAs. This research analyses the basis risk of FFAs and provides a feasible suggestion to reduce it. Basis risk is divided into timing basis, route basis, size basis, and low liquidity basis. The timing basis is defined as the difference between the physical hire, fixed on the specific contract date and the FFA settlement price, calculated by averaging spot rates for a certain period. Timing basis is considered the worst in eroding the effectiveness of FFAs. This paper suggests a change of hire payment criterion from contract date to 15-day moving average, as a means of mitigating the basis risk, and analyzed the effectiveness through historical simulation. The result revealed that the change is effective in mitigating the timing basis. This study delivers a meaningful implication to shipping practice in that the change of hire payment criterion mitigates the basis risk and eventually activates the use of FFAs in the future.