The shipowner's fuel decision panel at SIBCON 2026. Image Credit: Ship & Bunker

On new environmental regulation, shipowners want clarity from regulators more than lower ambition, the panel on the shipowner's fuel decision at SIBCON 2026 in Singapore heard on Wednesday.

"I can price in a tough regulation, but I can't price in a regulation that's missing," one session participant said.

Delegates heard that for a long-term owner looking to order new tonnage, ordering a dual-fuel vessel was considered to be a "no-brainer" cap-ex decision against the risk of single fuel ships becoming stranded assets over the vessel's 25 to 30 year lifespan.

The hard decision was deciding which alternative to back, because the green premium is a running op-ex cost paid every year, and without clarity on a global regulation, knowing what that cost will be is very difficult.

Today's prices blur that premium, the panel heard, with biodiesel sometimes cheaper than MGO and ethanol at parity with fuel oil in the recent past.

Flexibility has a price of its own in capital, running costs, and crew, delegates heard, as a fleet that once burned only HFO and MGO now potentially handles a long list of fuels.

At the same time, the industry is already short of crew.

The Hormuz crisis has also changed how owners plan, with delegates hearing that for the first time operators are having to consider that fuel might simply not be available when needed.

The panel was moderated by Mahua Mitra, editor, marine fuels (Asia) at Argus Media, with Chern Meng Huat, senior general manager, fleet management, at Pacific Carriers Limited, Emma Mazhari, chief executive of Maersk Oil Trading and head of energy markets at A.P. Møller-Maersk, Richard Ho, vice president, fuel department, at Ocean Network Express, and Smriti Sharma, global director, strategy, sustainability and enterprise risk management, at AET.

Below are other key takeaways from the session that was held under the Chatham House rule, so what follows is reported without attributing any point to an individual speaker.

Singapore Held

• Singapore sold about 56 million mt of bunkers in 2025, and the past eight months extrapolate to a similar or higher figure, which is read as a strong signal for the hub's resilience to the recent disruption.
• In the worst moment owners came to Singapore to bunker because they trusted the fuel would be there, of the right quality and quantity.
• The logistics players and barge operators behind that availability were praised for making sure Singapore's bunker supply ecosystem continued to work.

Alternative Fuels

• Recent market disruption has shown the different sensitivity of fuels: gasoil became very expensive, while methanol prices stayed very stable, especially for the green product.
• Those with an interest in methanol are now looking at the broader alcohols pathway, as methanol and ethanol work together.
• The world's largest ethanol trial is due in Singapore soon with MPA support.
• Low-carbon methanol is a new market that needs new plants, whereas ethanol has liquid markets, big production in Brazil and the US, and overcapacity as electric vehicles cut road demand, a gap marine could plug.
• When it comes to alternative fuels or ordering new tonnage, waiting is no longer an option and the shipowner's choice between a short-term fix and a long-term pathway was likened to choosing a painkiller or a cure.
• LNG is the bridge, and bio-LNG is easy to add once physical LNG is in the portfolio, because it runs on certificates, and Europe already has a fairly liquid biomethane certificate market.
• Over the long term ammonia was called vital, but not this decade.
• Biofuels play in the short term, with the advantage that they are a drop-in blending component available in many ports, but questions remain over availability and competition from aviation.
• In Latin America only ethanol works for shuttle tankers, because that is what Brazil produces.

Regulation and 2027

• Regulation was seen as the biggest factor in fuel choice, because a ship built today for 20 to 25 years will still be running in 2050, and regulation decides what fuel it runs on; supply and price follow.
• With the IMO framework unsettled, some owners are instead focusing on energy-saving devices, engine efficiency, and newbuilds with better designs.
• Supply and demand differ hub by hub, so a global fleet needs a portfolio of options to manage cost, EU compliance, and customer demand together.
• Without clarity, every year's orderbook locks in more conventional-fuel ships for 25 years.
• Green premiums need to be managed, and there are different ways of doing that: in the EU, regulation can be double or triple stacked, in the Netherlands for example, which supports adoption, "but of course we need that on a global scale".

The Price of Optionality

• There is a limit to how many fuels a portfolio can carry, but volatile fuel markets reward the owner that can capture the spread between them; how much depends on fleet size.
• Port readiness sets the limit too: ships cannot be deployed where the fuel cannot be lifted, and Singapore's new LNG and methanol licences were welcomed on that score.
• Contracts for alternative fuels are partnerships rather than the one-to-12-month deals of conventional fuel, to lock in both supply and price.
• Quality is paramount: a 16,000 TEU ship stopped by bad fuel hurts many market participants at once, and Singapore's record on quality and quantity is what lets buyers move quickly.