Bunker supplier Suzun Marine Fuels is taking an unusual approach to bunker trading, writing seafarer welfare directly into its commercial terms and reserving the right to refuse ships linked to unpaid wages, forced labour or poor onboard conditions.

The Gibraltar-based company has changed the way it transacts with shipowners, adding a clause that allows it to refuse supply and cancel without penalty where a vessel or operator has been reported to organisations including the ILO or ITF over unpaid wages, poor working conditions, forced labour or modern slavery. Buyers must compensate Suzun for losses arising from cancelled supplies.

Chief executive and credit manager Can Besev says the clause turns an issue normally confined to corporate responsibility statements into a transaction-level decision.

"We don't want to supply such ships," Besev says. The bunker industry, he argues, occupies an unusually powerful position because ships cannot trade without fuel.

Besev believes that leverage should be used not only for ethical reasons but also because crew welfare is a significant credit signal.

Unpaid wages can indicate financial distress well before a shipowner starts missing payments to banks or major bunker suppliers, he says. Smaller creditors — including chandlers, repair firms and crew — may feel the pressure earlier because their ability to enforce claims is weaker.

Besev estimates that crew costs can account for around half of a vessel's daily operating expenditure. An owner unable to meet those obligations should therefore trigger much closer scrutiny from bunker credit departments.

He also describes unpaid seafarers as an involuntary source of interest-free finance. Three months of arrears at an illustrative crew cost of $3,500 a day amounts to roughly $315,000 retained by the operator.

For bunker suppliers, the problem becomes particularly acute if a ship is arrested. Crew claims can rank ahead of bunker and other unsecured supplier debts, potentially reducing recoveries further.

Besev sees operational risk rising at the same time. Owners cutting crew costs may also be cutting expenditure on maintenance, spares, repairs and training. Prolonged wage arrears can increase stress onboard, undermine morale and, in extreme circumstances, create greater exposure to theft, corruption, quantity disputes and safety failures. That makes crew welfare relevant to both compliance and counterparty assessment, he argues.

The industry's modern slavery declarations also need to move beyond what Besev regards as a largely procedural exercise. Seafarers who remain onboard because wages are withheld — and leaving could mean forfeiting months of outstanding pay — can effectively become trapped, he says. The reference to the ILO and ITF points to the existing reporting architecture for such cases: the International Labour Organization's maritime labour conventions and the International Transport Workers' Federation, which inspects vessels and pursues crew wage claims, are among the main channels through which seafarer mistreatment allegations surface. Yet vessels facing such allegations can still find charterers, suppliers and bunker counterparties willing to transact. Suzun's response is deliberately simple: it reserves the right not to participate.

Besev and business partner Selçuk Mehmet Uzun are now pushing for a broader industry discussion and have raised the issue with bunker industry association IBIA, whose members include bunker suppliers, traders and brokers across the main bunkering hubs. How other suppliers respond — and whether welfare-linked clauses become a credit-department norm rather than a single company's policy — is the open question the initiative now faces.

The ambition, Besev tells Maritime CEO, is not to create another compliance document, but to make crew treatment part of the commercial decision itself.

Source: Splash247