The profit traders can get from selling shipping fuel in Singapore, the world’s second-busiest container port, may rise 24% in 2011 after the worst slump in at least two years, a Bloomberg News survey showed.

Sellers of 380-centistoke fuel oil, or bunkers, will receive an average US$4.20 ($5.37) a metric ton more than what they pay for the cargoes in Singapore this year, according to the median estimate in a survey of six traders conducted Jan. 24-27. The difference, known as the bunkers premium, shrank to an average US$3.40 a ton last year from US$5.92 in 2009 and $12.14 in 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

China’s booming economy is powering Singapore’s container traffic, fanning demand for fuel to drive ships just as supplies get squeezed by rising power-station use elsewhere in Asia. Sales of bunkers, which surged to an all-time high in 2010, may advance a further 9% this year, according to Poten & Partners Inc., a New York-based energy adviser and shipbroker.

 

“If the current tightness in the market continues until the end of March, the premium could average $10 for the first three months of the year,” said Kazushi Fujisawa, a trading manager at Peninsula Petroleum in Tokyo who has worked for PetroChina Co., Itochu Corp., and Nippon Oil during his 19 years in the bunkers business.

 

The bunkers premium jumped to US$20.50 a ton yesterday and has averaged $9.55 this year, according to Bloomberg data. A cargo of 380-centistoke fuel oil for loading in Singapore cost US$545 ($696) yesterday, while bunkers for delivery to ships were at US$565.50.

 

Traders buy fuel oil, a residue from refining crude, in the cargo market where it’s typically exchanged in lots of 20,000 tons or more. They then store it before selling to shipowners in smaller parcels.

 

Returns slumped last year as the number of accredited suppliers in Singapore increased. There were 80 at the end of last year, according to the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, compared with 75 in 2009. BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and SK Energy Co. are the nation’s biggest.

 

“The Singapore bunkers market will remain under furious sales competition this year because of increased suppliers,” Fujisawa said.

 

Singapore became the world’s busiest container port in 2005 after Hong Kong lost out to cheaper harbors in southern China. The city state’s economy will expand as much as 6% in 2011, according to government estimates, after growing an unprecedented 14.7% last year.