WORLD FUEL SERVICES Miami, Florida; Fuel Supplier Profits By Sea And By Air.(THE NEW AMERICA)

Byline: ALAN R. ELLIOTT

Nothing puts your sport utility vehicle's lousy mileage in perspective like a quick look at the shipping trade.

Tankers, cargo and passenger ships, powered by the putty-thick dregs of the oil refining process, consume not gallons, but tons, per day.

"We used to run something like 150 tons of heavy fuel oil a day, and the ships have only become bigger," said Shashi Kumar, a former container freight chief officer who now serves as director of the business school at the Maine Maritime Academy.

Those ships drive the global economy, moving more than 90% of the trade goods shipped worldwide. Thanks to rising fuel prices, shippers must put a greater emphasis on managing costs.

As they do, more attention is being paid to an obscure link in the fuel supply chain called fuel resellers, the largest of which is World Fuel Services Corp.

World Fuel supplies fuel for ships and aircraft at more than 3,000 air and seaports in more than 160 countries.