Copenhagen-based maritime technology company ZeroNorth in a tactical move for expansion buys a software platform for marine fuel suppliers, BTS PTE in Singapore. This follows the acquisition of Prosmar Bunkering AS, the online platform supporting the bunker fuel market.
BTS acquisition, which brings more than 15 years of market expertise and marine fuel trading, will support ZeroNorth to focus specifically within the marine fuel industry, and in its growth strategy after the acquisition three months ago of Prosmar Bunkering. It will also establish its presence in Singapore, which is the largest global marine bunkering hub.
As the top management of ZeroNorth highlights “the ambition is to expand these improved marine fuel services for suppliers to other global ports.”
The tech company said the transaction would add BTS’s flagship suite of services to ZeroNorth.
These comprise the Intelligent Bunker Management System (iBMS), a software specially tailored for the marine fuel supply chain. iBMS helps to increase the efficiency and profitability of marine fuel suppliers, traders and brokers by digitalising their business processes through eliminating unproductive tasks, automating work processes, greater sharing of information, and enhancing decision making.
As the company informs today, ZeroNorth will build a fully cloud-based iBMS solution. The service will eventually be incorporated into ZeroNorth’s unified platform for optimisations across maritime operations.
iBMS was one of the first projects supported by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore under the Maritime Innovation and Technology Fund in the early 2000s.
Kenneth Juhls, Managing Director of ZeroNorth Bunker, said: “The marine fuel industry is taking centre stage in shipping’s green transition. With the increasing pressure to digitalise and optimise your marine fuel supply chain, and the influx of alternative fuel options becoming available, equipping our customers with the ability to make better decisions in regards to procuring, storing and selling fuel is becoming a key priority for ZeroNorth.
“By acquiring BTS, we are taking the next step towards delivering an end-to-end marine fuel service that aligns all stakeholders across the same data through the ZeroNorth platform. Moreover, by building a bridge between stakeholders, we are increasing collaboration across the maritime value chain and accelerating our goal to drive decarbonisation alongside the wider industry.”
Dharma Sreenivas Reddy, Managing Director of BTS, added: “This partnership with ZeroNorth will enable us to modernise our solutions to deliver greater user experience for our customers, and ultimately accelerate the digital transformation of the marine fuel industry.”
