<\/p>\n
\n \n\u00a9 Igor Groshev \/ Adobe Stock\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n With more ships heading around the Cape of Good Hope due to attacks in the Red Sea region and a shutdown in their main South African bunkering operations, Mercuria and Trafigura have started refuelling services in Mauritius, four sources said.<\/p>\n The two trading houses have opened operations in Port Louis to compensate for the shutdown at South Africa’s Algoa Bay which stems from a tax dispute with authorities, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.<\/p>\n Algoa Bay is South Africa’s only offshore ship-to-ship bunkering zone where tankers service passing ships at anchorage.<\/p>\n South African tax authorities (SARS) have detained vessels and suspended offshore refuelling operations for bp, Mercuria’s Minerva Bunkering and Trafigura’s Heron Marine pending an audit.<\/p>\n That has prompted ships taking the longer Cape of Good Hope route to use Port Louis or Walvis Bay in Namibia instead.<\/p>\n Trafigura confirmed it started operations in Mauritius in February after it formed a venture with local bunkering firm Groupe Roland Maurel (GRM).<\/p>\n “Demand for bunkering services in Port Louis have increased in recent months due to the disruption to shipping routes caused by the Red Sea situation,” a TFG (Trafigura) Marine spokesperson said.<\/p>\n Mercuria has partnered up with Engen Mauritius, part of Malaysia’s Petronas, according to a local shipping agent who asked not to be identified as he is not allowed to speak to the press.<\/p>\n Mercuria and Engen Mauritius did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Yemen’s Houthi militants have attacked dozens of vessels with drones and missiles since November in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab Strait and Gulf of Aden. Last week the Rubymar cargo became the first ship to sink following an attack.<\/p>\n (Reuters – Reporting by Wendell Roelf; editing by Tim Cocks and Jason Neely)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n maritime professional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 13, 2024 \u00a9 Igor Groshev \/ Adobe Stock With more ships heading around the Cape of Good Hope due to attacks in the Red Sea region and a shutdown in their main South African bunkering operations, Mercuria and Trafigura have started refuelling services in Mauritius, four sources said. The two trading houses have opened …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/40415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMarch 13, 2024<\/span>
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