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In March 2014, OW Bunker listed on the Copenhagen exchange. It was Denmark's third largest company by revenue and the largest marine fuel supplier in the world. Eight months later it was in bankruptcy, thirteen banks were owed $750 million, and shipowners across every major trading region were discovering that they might have to pay for the same bunkers twice. The collapse produced a decade of litigation across multiple jurisdictions, a UK Supreme Court decision that reclassi

There is a gap at the center of the marine fuel industry that catches operators out with striking regularity. A cargo of fuel can be delivered fully compliant with the ISO 8217 specification stated in the contract, pass an independent laboratory test against every parameter in the relevant table, and still wreck an engine. The specification and the engine's tolerance are two different things, set by two different bodies, for two different purposes, and the distance between th

"Some careers are chosen. Mine was shaped by the sea, by the contracts signed before cargo leaves port, the disputes that arise when it doesn't arrive as planned, and the infrastructure of global trade that most people never think about until something goes wrong." Where This Comes From My name is Richard Young, and I've spent the better part of my career working inside the maritime industry. Not from the shore, not at sea, but deep in the operational and legal machinery that