Bunker Holding Takes on Former OW Bunker Staff

Denmark's Bunker Holding is setting up a ship fuel delivery business in the northern part of the country, taking on eight former staff of collapsed rival OW Bunker, it said on Friday.

The move marks a shift in strategy for Bunker Holding, which until now has focused on trading shipping fuel rather than the so-called physical part of the market, which involves the actual delivery of the fuel, known as bunker fuel, to vessels.

"The Group holds no aspiration of becoming a major player in the physical market but has a goal to become a niche supplier in selected strategic areas and ports. One of these strategic focus areas is the Nordic region,"Bunker Holding said in a statement.

The new business will operate under the name Unioil Supply and will be based in Aalborg, where OW Bunker had headquarters.

OW Bunker, valued at $1 billion when it listed at the end of March in the second largest Danish IPO since 2010, came crashing down last month after losing almost $300 million in hedging losses and what it called fraud.

With a market share of around 8 percent OW Bunker was the largest bunker firm in the world ahead of World Fuel Services , Singapore-based Chemoil and Denmark's Bunker Holding.

Ship fuel counts for around 70 percent of all costs for shipping companies and the global market for bunker fuel is estimated to worth more than $100 billion annually.