More foreign oil trading firms have expanded their business to China's bonded bunker market, by supplying bonded bunkers indirectly to ship owners or selling the product to qualified traders, since the market has not been completely liberated yet.

Most of these companies are from Japan, including Mitsui, Marubeni, Toyota Tsusho and Hanwha Japan.

A Japanese company which usually trades low-sulfur wax residue from Southeast Asia started to dip a toe in the Chinese bonded bunker market from 2009, primarily in Hong Kong at present. It purchases fuel oil from local market, sellers of which should deliver the fuel to ship owners signing purchase contracts with the company earlier. Cost for being an agent for supplying bonded bunker was low, because the company did not need to rent fueling boats or terminals, said a Hong Kong-based bunker suppler who had co-operated with the Japanese company.

In addition to Japanese companies, a Singapore-based petroleum trading company has recently rented 50,000 cubic meters of bonded fuel oil tanks in South China, said a market source. The company may have signed supply contracts with Chinese bonded bunker traders.

In face of shrinking fuel oil demand from traditional users, quite a few foreign suppliers for China have switched their focuses to the country’s bonded bunker market.

It will be a very long time before these companies could get bonded bunker business license, said a private bonded bunker supplier in China.

At present, only five enterprises are qualified to operate bonded bunker business in China.