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Vitol Group intends to begin supplying marine fuel to customers in Malaysia, Bloomberg reports.

The world's largest oil trader is said to be planning to sell parcels of bunker fuel to ships via its Malaysian unit, Vitol Trading Malaysia Labuan Ltd., at Tanjung Pelepas, located in the southern state of Johor.

In an interview last week, Managing Director Khairul R. Ramly, is reported to have said that Vitol wants to supply around fifty percent of the 3 million metric tonnes sold in the area per year.

“We’ll start small bunker deliveries at Tanjung Pelepas port. Maersk is a big shareholder, that’s the first target. Hopefully we’ll get 50 percent of the market, not in the first year, but slowly. People are calling us," Khairul said.

Product will be sourced from a storage facility in Tanjung Bin, located less than a mile from Tanjung Pelepas. The terminal is operated by VTTI - a joint venture between Vitol Group and MISC Berhad.

Commenting on the proximity of the storage complex, Khairul said: "Growing this bunkering business is our first priority, something that we should be very competitive in, because of where we are. It’s five minutes for us to load a cargo from Tanjung Bin instead of one and a half hours from Singapore."

Vitol is also looking to take advantage of spill-over demand as vessel congestion grows in Singapore and companies relocate to ports such as Tanjung Pelepas.

AP Moeller- Maersk A/S, the world’s largest bunker buyer and container line, moved its transshipment hub to Tanjung Pelepas from Singapore in 2000. Evergreen Marine Corp. Taiwan Ltd. also relocated there in 2002.

Singapore is the world's largest bunker port in terms of volume sold. According to data from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), last year the port sold a record 43.2 million tonnes. It was also the the second-largest container port after Shanghai.

Tanjung Pelepas received its maiden vessel in October 1999 and set a world record as the fastest growing port with 1 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of containers handled after 571 days of operations. The port has continued to register spectacular growth.