March 2021 MTTO Newsletter
Fleet Group Management - Bunker Adjustment Factor by Varisth Agarwal Most of the Maersk Product tanker vessels operate under Maersk Tankers A/S commercial pools which also include vessels from other owners. The total earnings of the pool are distributed to the vessel’s Owner basis various factors like age of the vessel, cargo carrying flexibility, trade area flexibility etc. For example, a B-class vessel gets 0.5 additional point for ice class and 2 additional points to carry IMO cargo. Each pool point could bring additional 60 to 150 usd/day depending of current pool point value.
Over and above the static factors there is one significant measure which can affect owner’s earnings by almost 2500 usd/day/vessel and that is Bunker adjustment factor or BAF. BAF is calculated basis vessel’s fuel performance/consumption for various sailing conditions like laden, Ballast, idle, load and discharge. In simple words if a vessel consumes an average of 1 MT/ day higher than its expected and pool average consumption then the owner is directly penalized basis the current bunker price during the month ie. About 300-450usd/MT. Fuel performance of a vessel depends on vessels design, construction, machinery and automation. It also depends on efficient day to day operation, maintenance and reporting which are primarily driven by our onboard crew.
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