International Limited, it trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker BANL. Banle Group is an established marine fuel logistics company in the Asia Pacific, providing customers with a one-stop solution for vessel refueling. Happy to welcome Chairman and CEO, Dr. William Chia. Welcome, Dr. William Chia. Also nice to see you, Venus, as well. We're happy to have you on our conference today.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Ellen.
All right, the floor is yours. Call me back when you're ready for our questions.
Sure. Thank you for joining us. I'm Venus Zhao, Investor Relations and Public Relations Director of CBL International Limited. Presenting alongside me is Dr. William Chia, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. We are excited to share our performance and achievements in the first half of 2025 and provide an outlook for the fiscal year 2025 at the Emerging Growth Conference. Let's begin with today's agenda. Our presentation will cover the following: First, company introduction; second, market trends and geopolitical impact; third, financial review; fourth, operational review; and fifth, strategic initiatives and market outlook. We then come to the Q&A section. Let me start with a brief introduction to CBL International. CBL International Limited, NASDAQ ticker BANL, is the listing vehicle of Banle Group, a reputable marine fuel logistics company based in the Asia Pacific region that was established in 2015.
We are a global marine fuel logistics provider operating under an asset-light business model. Our key services include bunkering services across strategic global ports, supplying both fossil fuels and sustainable fuels, and serving container liners, bulk carriers, and tankers. We are recognized as professional and trustworthy by our business counterparties, delivering flexible and integrated vessel refueling solutions. Our competitive advantages include: First, global port network. We operate in over 65 ports across Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, and Central America. Second, supplier relationships. We maintain strong relationships, enabling us to offer competitive fuel pricing, superior advice, and operational efficiency. Third, customer service. With our extensive service, we can offer one-stop refueling solutions for customers, ensuring seamless service and operational efficiency. Fourth, growth strategy. We are focused on expanding our service network, increasing sales volume, and integrating sustainable fuel solutions to meet evolving market needs.
Now, we move on to the market trends and geopolitical impact. Seaborne trade and container volume have demonstrated steady growth, as shown in this review of 2024. According to UNCTAD, total seaborne trade grew by 2.5% in 2025, while containerized trade grew by 2.9%. Both are forecasted to maintain moderate annual growth rates through 2029. Ship supply increased by 6.1% in 2025, with demand growing by 3.5% to 4.5%. These numbers reflect a consistent recovery and expansion of global trade. CBL's bunkering operation network aligns strongly with this trend, with a presence in 13 out of the top 15 global container ports, including all of the top 10 ports, such as Shanghai, Singapore, Ningbo, and Zhoushan. On the customer front, CBL serves 9 out of the top 12 global container liners, which represent a combined around 60% market share in the global container lines. Let's move on to financial highlights.
As you may see on the screen, here are the first half 2025 financial highlights, showcasing CBL's strong performance. Total sales volume grew by 9.8%, while revenue decreased by 4.4% to $265.2 million. Gross profit margin increased by 4 basis points to 1.02%, and net loss narrowed by 38.8%. Our current ratio of 1.54 demonstrates healthy liquidity, while capital days at minus 4.44 highlight excellent cash cycle management. Now, we move on to operational review. Global development is part of CBL's core strategy, and we have continued to see successful expansion since our IPO in 2023. As of June 30, 2025, CBL's global service network has expanded to 65 ports, making a significant milestone in our growth strategy. The Asia Pacific region remains CBL's primary revenue driver, with key contributions from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea.
Volume attributable to deliveries in Asia Pacific surged by 9.1% year on year. Given several ports in the Asia Pacific are major global shipping hubs, 13 of the world's top 15 container ports in 2024, according to the world's list. Bunker operations in this region account for a significant portion of deliveries. The expansion is especially evident in Europe, where our strategic focus on the AIA region has enhanced our market presence. While current volumes in this region remain steady, we are well positioned to scale operations in response to rising customer demand, ensuring we can meet market demand as sales rise. In the first half of 2025, CBL achieved a 9.8% increase in sales volume, despite a challenging macroeconomic environment marked by fluctuating oil prices and geopolitical instability.
This growth was fueled by the expansion of our service network, the successful acquisition of new customers, and the strategic shift toward non-container liner segments. As of June 30, 2025, CBL served 9 of the world's top 12 container shipping lines, which contributed to nearly 60% of global container fleet capacity. The company's expanding customer base and broader service portfolio have reinforced its market position. In terms of customer diversification, revenue share from top 12 liners increased to 60.1%. Non-container sales, bulk, and tanker accounted for 36.9%. Top five customer sales concentration declined to 60.4% in the first half of 2025, and new customers from 2024 and the first half of 2025 contributed to 11.9% in the first half of 2025 sales. In the biofuel sector, CBL achieved a significant growth in sales and volume in the first half of 2025.
Biofuel saw an impressive increase of 154.7% year on year in the first half of 2025, with volume growth increasing 189.5%. This growth can be attributable to CBL's continued leadership in the sustainable fuel market, driven by the increasing adoption of biofuels among our customers. CBL has remained at the forefront of biofuel adoption, with the successful launch of our B24 biofuel in key markets, including Hong Kong, China, and Malaysia. Globally, CBL facilitated the first B24 supplies across several markets. Besides, the launch of biofuel helped reduce GHG emissions by 20% compared to the traditional fuels. CBL has adopted ISCC EU and ISCC+ certifications in early 2023. Looking ahead, CBL plans to further diversify biofuel offerings and strengthen our market position in green marine fuel. In addition, the company will explore more green fuel options, such as LNG and methanol, to meet evolving sustainability regulations and industry demand.
Now we move on to strategic initiatives and outlook. Looking ahead to fiscal year 2025, our key initiatives include: strengthen our service network, focusing on Asia Pacific and European markets, strengthening our presence in emerging markets, continue expanding port coverage, grow sales volume, continue to target new customers and new segments while maintaining strong relationships with current customers, enhance market position, stronger and more in-depth supplier relationships, explore sustainable fuels, biofuel adoption as a core of CBL's sustainability strategy, focus on compliance with the latest carbon emission regulations with further exploration of biofuel products and other sustainable fuels. The International Maritime Organization, IMO, agreed on its Global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) framework in April, with full implementation set for 2028. This decision further emphasized the urgency of reducing emissions, promoting biofuel adoption, and encouraging future investment in ships capable of running on carbon, zero carbon fuels.
Thank you for your attention, and we are happy to take your questions. Please feel free to share your questions with Dr. William Chia. Thank you, Ellen. If you wish to have a one-on-one meeting, please email me at vzhao@banle-intl.com. Thank you. I pass it to you, Ellen.
Wonderful. Thank you, Venus. Yes, a few questions for you. For people who may not be very familiar with CBL, could you walk us through your business model and explain really what does set you apart from the other companies in the bunkering facilitation industry?
Sure. Thank you very much, Shanna. I think for those who may not know us well, Banle Group is actually and essentially marine fuel logistics facilitators. What that means is that we provide a one-stop solution for vessel refueling, helping shipowners and operators to plan, to arrange, and to monitor the bunkering services. We do it for both traditional fossil fuels as well as increasingly sustainable fuels. What sets us apart is really our business model. We have a comprehensive and agile business model. Maybe I can elaborate a little bit further. First, our global network. We now operate across 65 strategic ports in Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, and Central America. The comprehensive coverage, especially in the busy intra-Asian trade routes, gives our clients a lot of flexibility.
This also allows us to be agile, so when there's a trade flow shift or there's any service disruptions, we are able to respond swiftly. Second, we provide a one-stop shop solution. Vessel operations and schedules actually change every moment. When a client's vessel is traveling around the world, they do not need to worry about juggling between different suppliers, checking credit terms, or even whether fuel is available. We can handle all this. Within our supply network, we ensure smooth operations and hassle-free service for our customers. On the other hand, we also benefit from the operational scale. We aggregate the demand across our client base, which we are able to negotiate better terms with our suppliers, and we are therefore able to pass that savings and stability to our customers. Finally, we are able to proactively fund the sustainability fund.
We are one of the early movers in biofuels, securing ISCC certifications and launching B24 plans in the ports like Hong Kong, Singapore, China, and Malaysia. Shipping companies are currently under pressure to meet increasing complex emissions regulations. Therefore, pioneering in the sustainable fuel has positioned ourselves to be a trusted partner. In short, Banle is differentiated by our global supply network, differentiated by our one-stop facilitation model, and differentiated by our first-mover advantage in sustainable fuels. Thank you, Ellen.
Perfect. Thank you for that explanation. Now, looking at your different growth areas, which accomplishment would you highlight as the most significant so far, and what were the main drivers behind that success? Maybe talk about a few challenges.
Sure. The ocean is never short of challenges. Right now, we are facing geopolitical conflicts, the Red Sea crisis, tariff war, switching to biofuels, and other renewable energies. We have been seeing all these challenges one by one, all coming together. We have managed to keep maintaining our growth. At the same time, we have achieved a sales volume growth of about 10% for the first half of 2025. We have achieved continuous growth in sales volume over the past few years as well. Amid all these challenges, we managed to keep down our expenses and reduce our loss. We will continue to strive to make more improvements in the future.
The most significant achievement for us in the past couple of years is that we have been growing our port of services in the global service network from 36 ports at the time of our IPO in the year 2023 to 65 ports in the first half of 2025. Our region covers now, including Asia Pacific, Europe, Central America, as well as Africa. Our growth is actually driven by targeting entries into high-demand ports and strengthening our abilities to partner with major suppliers and customers. We focus on customer-driven diversification, especially into bulk carriers and tankers, which is beyond our core container liner-based customers. We move along when we have captured a volume growth of about 36.7% in these new markets, and altogether, we have grown by close to about 10% in the first half of the year.
CBL has navigated through significant headwinds, including geopolitical disruptions, oil price fluctuations, and intensifying competition in key markets that we operate. What we do is we are leveraging our agile and asset-light business model. We minimize our fixed costs while we secure stable and reliable supply partners. We are also the early movers in the biofuels to ensure that we have the biofuel capabilities, such as our successful rollout of the ISCC certification plans in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore, as I said before. The strategic and operational agility allowed CBL to expand meaningfully without compromising our financial stability. We are also turning challenges into differentiators and reinforcing our value propositions as a resilient, future-ready bunkering partner.
Thank you for that. Now let's talk about the geopolitical tensions. They are everywhere, and shipping route disruptions seem to be continuing. How is CBL positioning itself to take advantage of changing trade flows, particularly in Euro-Asia and intra-Asia routes?
Absolutely. The ongoing instabilities in the Red Sea have led vessels to reroute via the Cape of Good Hope, actually extending the Euro-Asia voyages by about 10 to 40 days, and as a result, increasing the fuel consumptions. The redirections have caused a surge in the demand for the bunkering services at the alternative ports around these new routes. CBL has targeted our services to meet these demands and to capitalize on the opportunities. The trade policy changes in April 2025 have also redirected some cargoes in different regions. The shifts in the trade flow have probably increased the demand for bunkering services in Euro-Asia, as well as the intra-Asia corridors. With our extensive supply network in these regions, we are seeing additional requirements for our services. Therefore, despite all these disruptions, we responded effectively, resulting in increased sales volumes in Asia Pacific and other emerging markets.
CBL's broad supply network has positioned ourselves to adapt to changing trade flows while maintaining our efficient bunkering operations, and we are able to seize the opportunities in these new and alternative routes. Thanks, Ellen.
Now, sales from non-container liners now make up 36.9% of revenue, showing meaningful progress in diversification. How do you plan to keep expanding this segment while still maintaining solid ties with your core container liner clients?
Thanks to our network expansion in the last couple of years, we are able to provide reliable and flexible supply arrangements for our non-container liner customers, like those bulk carriers and tankers. Thanks to our network expansion in the last few years, we are also effectively and efficiently serving those non-container liners customers where their vessels have less predictable scheduling as compared to those container liners. Meanwhile, we continue to service nine out of the world's top 12 container liners, which represents close to about 60% of the global container fleet capacity. We have been actively targeting new customers that shall include mid-tier shipowners, bulkers, and tankers. Now our customer diversification has reached a significant milestone, and the non-container liner sales have become an important segment for us, accounting for about 37% of our revenue.
Our sales concentrations among the top five customers have also declined from 60.4%, compared to 66.7% a year ago. Ellen, thank you.
Now, in the first half of 2025, biofuel sales jumped 154.7%, with volume growth of nearly 190%. How is CBL building on this strong momentum to cement its pioneering role in the biofuel market?
Thank you. We have capitalized on the revenue surge of about 154.7% for the first half of the year and about 190% on the volume growth for biofuel sales. CBL is selling our B24 biofuel offering across key maritime ports in the world. The company's ISCC EU certification and ISCC+ certifications will ensure our compliance with the evolving international regulations. Building on the current foundations, we are also looking into exploring and expanding our portfolio beyond just biofuels. We are actively exploring LNG and methanol supply chains. These alternatives actually represent the critical pathways to decarbonization for vessel operators facing tighter IMO as well as the EU regulations.
With the green marine fuel market expected to grow at a CAGR of about 50.4% between the year 2023 to 2030, CBL is actually positioned to capture the opportunities through our continuous innovation, strategic collaborations, as well as investments into the verticals and horizontal integrations. The company aims to continuously increase the proportions of our biofuel and other alternative fuels in the near future. In short, CBL is actually transforming its sustainable fuel momentum into a long-term prominent market player. We'll be combining certification credibilities, fuel diversification, regulatory foresight, as well as customer-aligned solutions. These strategies will allow Banle Group to remain at the forefront of the green energy transitions in the global marine logistics. Thank you, Ellen.
Perfect. Now, as the CEO of a global bunkering service facilitator, what trends and what shifts do you see shaping the shipping and marine fuel industry worldwide, and how are you positioning CBL to benefit from those changes?
Sharing a few wheels of our observations. First of all, we see that there's a resilience in the container shipping fleet expansion. The global container fleet has been increasing by 10% this year as compared to last year, driven by new vessel deliveries, as well as the demand for the diverted routes. However, the growth is also tempered by trade policy volatilities, which may have temporarily dampened volumes. At the same time, it also spurs regional trade realignment towards Asia Pacific, as well as the intra-Asia corridors. On the geopolitical and the trade dynamics side, we see that the Red Sea disruption has extended voyages by 10 to 40 days that increase the bunker demand at the alternate routes. The U.S. tariff has again redirected trade flows, boosting the intra-Asian as well as the Euro-Asian bunkering demand. At the same time, it's actually creating some near-term volatilities.
On the other hand, we see carbon emissions recovery and also regulatory exacerbations. Carbon emissions in ocean shipping are improving post-2024 peaks, aided by route normalization, as well as the adoption of low carbon fuels. IMO 2023 GHG strategies, EU ETS, Fuel EU Maritime, as well as all exacerbating the biofuel adoptions. The green marine fuel market is actually projected to grow at a very fast speed. Our biofuel and sustainable fuel adoptions, as we can see that the CBL grows a lot in the first half of the biofuel sales, that is actually driven by regulatory compliance as well as the customer's decarbonization goal. We also see that the Mediterranean ECA implementations in May this year require 0.1% sulfur. That actually boosts the ultra-low sulfur fossil fuel, as well as the biofuel blended bunker demand. For CBL, our strategies, first of all, we'll continue our network expansions and diversifications.
Based on our 65 port networks, we'll be focusing on high-growth hubs to capture rewarded demand and also the tariff-driven trade shift. We shall also reduce our customer concentrations, expanding into other segments like the bulk carriers, tankers, and other mid-tier shipowners. At the same time, we'll be pioneering in the biofuels, and to ensure compliance regulations, we will be expanding our partnerships, collaborations with biofuel suppliers, producers of EUCOMI, as well as EUCO, particularly in the Asia Pacific, where we have a very strong supply network. Based on our certification advantage, based on our customers' education program, we will be assisting our customers to be providing them with technical support to make them understand more on how we can handle and share the information on the combustion of the characteristics of the biofuel plants with them. Meantime, the company is also exploring the opportunities in sustainable energy supply chains.
In terms of financial resilience and flexibility, we're actually preparing ourselves for future developments of the company. We have secured ample banking facilities to fund our working capitals and growing initiatives. The market is challenging and competitive, however, we strongly believe our current business model has proven to be prudent and is able to navigate through these stormy waters. In terms of technologies and risk mitigation, we have proactively leveraged IT tools for our credit and risk management. We also implement real-time order tracking and advanced monitoring systems to enhance our operational efficiency. We again utilize market intelligence tools to avoid any sanction vessels, ensuring that we are in strict compliance while we can minimize the geopolitical risk.
As the CEO of the company, I see an obvious trend that the maritime industry is navigating through historical transitions toward a new frontier calling for sustainability of the new fuels of tomorrow. CBL is positioned to capitalize through our agile network, biofuel expertise, as well as our disciplined financial management. The company is regularly exploring different verticals and horizontal integration opportunities, and the company is also firmly believing in the future's demand for the sustainable fuel. We shall be well prepared and well positioned to receive these transformations. Thank you, Ellen.
Perfect. Let's talk a little bit about the future with the last few minutes we have. Let's look out the next five years. How do you expect the company's business model to develop by 2030?
Despite the challenges posed by uncertainty in global economic conditions, geopolitical volatilities, regional crises, our gross profit remains stable all these years. In the first half of the year, we have successfully reduced our net loss, successfully diversified our customer base, and successfully improved our operational efficiency, as well as cost management. These strategies and measures we implemented have proven effective in navigating us through all these turbulent times. Our strategy will be continuing to strengthen the service network, growing sales volume, and further exploring sustainable fuels. We will continue to focus on our network expansions, as well as growing our sales volume, as well as the sustainable futures of the biofuels, as well as other sustainable fuels.
We are also regularly exploring different verticals and horizontal opportunities so that we can strategically position ourselves to capitalize on the growth opportunities and to support our customers in meeting the decarbonization goal. We want to grow Banle Group to be a full-fledged bunkering service facilitator. We strive for customer segments diversification, from container liners to non-container customers, from fossil fuels to biofuels and renewable fuels, and from Asia to the world. We are proud to build Banle Group into a well-rounded bunkering service facilitator for the future.
Perfect. We do have one minute left. What closing remarks do you have, Doctor, specifically for the investors watching our conference today?
I think that today the bunkering industry is at the crossroads because of the energy transitions. It's not just about delivering the fuel anymore. It's all about carbon reduction, all about new sustainable fuels and new technologies, as well as a new business model. Our real value, at the meantime, we believe, cannot be fully captured in today's BANL. Our true value lies with our management vision and ability to capitalize on these opportunities. Over the port networks that we have, it's more than just a coverage. It gives us the ability to immediately capture any opportunities when trade flows shift, be it the Red Sea routing, be it any of the U.S. tariff changes, or other things. We have been early movers in sustainable fuels, securing ISCC certification, and launching biofuel plans. That position is in a trusted compliance partnership for the shipping companies facing restrictive regulations.
When the market sometimes focuses on short-term margin fluctuations, what they are missing is the bigger picture. Banle Group is building a scalable, future-ready platform that combines operational resilience with leadership in sustainable fuels. That's where our intrinsic value lies and has not yet fully been reflected in our share price. Thank you, Ellen.
Perfect. Thank you so much for joining us on the conference, Venus and William. We appreciate your time and presentation, and we certainly look to have you again soon so we can hear some of these updates.
Thank you, Ellen.