Jet fuel shipper eyes Alaska market

Another company is looking to bring jet fuel into Alaska.

A unit of TransMontaigne, a Denver-based company involved in transportation and storage of refined products, has applied to the state Department of Environmental Conservation for an oil discharge prevention and contingency plan, or C-plan.

TransMontaigne plans to transport Jet A aviation fuel through Cook Inlet to the Port of Anchorage, a DEC public notice says. Double-hull vessels will carry a maximum of 325,000 barrels of product.

Morgan Stanley Capital Group, the principal commodities trading arm of investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, owns TransMontaigne, which says it specializes in “the fuel supply chain.”

The opportunity for fuel suppliers in Anchorage is the city’s international airport, a major stopover for wide-body cargo jets moving freight between Asia and North America.

Refineries in Alaska, including Flint Hills Resources facility at North Pole near Fairbanks, have had trouble in recent years meeting jet fuel demand.

In July, a top Japanese refiner, Cosmo Oil, also sought a C-plan to ship jet fuel into the Port of Anchorage. According to its application, Cosmo planned to transport up to 300,000 barrels of fuel on a monthly or quarterly basis, depending on market demand at the Anchorage airport.

Airport manager John Parrott told Petroleum News in a Dec. 21 interview that Cosmo did make a single shipment of jet fuel to Anchorage in early November as a trial run. Cosmo plans to resume deliveries in the spring, when air cargo traffic will increase following the post-Christmas slowdown, Parrott said.

Further details on TransMontaigne’s plans were unavailable at press time.

But Parrott guessed TransMontaigne also will deliver jet fuel from Asia.

The Anchorage airport uses about 15 million gallons of jet fuel a week, or 2 million gallons a day, he said.

—Wesley Loy