The panel on alternative fuel production and availability at SIBCON 2026. Image Credit: Ship & Bunker

Shipping sends the weakest price signal of those competing for low-carbon fuels and feedstocks, and where other industries have mandates making them a need-to-have, for Shipping they are currently a nice-to-have, the panel on The Evolving Supply Landscape: Alternative Fuels Production & Availability at SIBCON 2026 in Singapore heard on Thursday.

Delegates gathered were reminded again that capability is not demand: a dual-fuel ship does not mean the alternative fuel gets taken, the panel heard.

What actually gets lifted is driven by regulation and economics, with an understanding of demand only clear once orders are placed again and again.

But price can only drive buyers so far: B100 has traded below gasoil in north-west Europe for six to nine months, by several hundred dollars once the compliance value is counted, yet buyers have not switched, partly for want of confirmation from engine makers, delegates heard.

Supply follows the orderbook: with only about 40 ammonia-capable vessels on the water or on order, nobody will build infrastructure for more than that demand, and fuel producers naturally look to onshore customers first.

Scale means something different for each fuel, the panel heard: an LNG trader thinks in cargoes of 200,000 tonnes a month, so a 10,000-tonne contract struggles to get competitive logistics, while 10,000 tonnes of ethanol into a port like Singapore would be meaningful.

Asked whether today's bunkering hubs have a built-in advantage in the transition, the panel's answer was yes: marine fuel is a support service to cargo trades that were seen as unlikely to change, so new fuels will have to be brought to the ports where ships lift fuel today, and only truly advantaged production somewhere else would pull ships away from current trading patterns.

Looking to 2050, every country has its own net-zero obligation and will keep scarce net-zero fuel for its own use before releasing it to international shipping, so shipping has to secure its own supply, delegates were told.

The panel was moderated by Yao Yikai, director of marine services at the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), with Jesper Sørensen, global head of alternative fuels and carbon markets at KPI OceanConnect, Nicolas Robbins, regional marine manager, Asia Pacific and Middle East, at bp, Shinsuke Umada, executive officer at MOL (Asia Oceania) and regional head of business for Southeast Asia and Oceania at Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, and Takeo Akamatsu, general manager of the green innovation business unit at ITOCHU Corporation.

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.

The Market Today

• The biggest change of the past 18 months is geopolitical uncertainty, which has raised fuel prices and changed trade patterns, bunkering ports, and volumes.
• That has moved the conversation from the most economic supply to managing uncertainty and supply chain resilience.
• Owners are diversifying across LNG, biofuels, methanol, ethanol, ammonia, and hydrogen, and investing in various energy-saving technologies, with the choice for each ship set by its trade, type, operating profile, and the fuel available on its route.
• Certainty was never on offer, and the focus should be on what progress has been made: biofuels are now available at a network of more than 220 ports, up from nine two years ago, Singapore has expanded its LNG licensing, methanol is available in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Korea, and Europe, ethanol is starting to be supplied, and recycled carbon fuels are coming.

Supply and Demand

• Producers need a signal from shipping on which fuel it wants: if the orders are LNG, LNG infrastructure gets built; if ammonia, that does; otherwise there is no reason to build.
• There is still no global definition of clean or green ammonia, only a European one, which means neither buyers nor the banks behind producers can commit long term for fear the fuel is redefined in a few years, so an ammonia producer cannot rely on shipping alone to underwrite a plant and has to line up other buyers too, such as power generators in Japan and Korea and the hydrogen industry in Europe.
• Any of the fuels can reach 5 million or 10 million tonnes, but 100 million tonnes takes 10 to 20 years, so the field stays open for a decade or two before any fuel is dominant.
• Not every fuel suits every vessel segment, so the market to build is one where different pathways develop for the segments they fit, which needs regulatory certainty.
• The lack of uptake is down to a lack of certainty, and only partly a pricing issue: there is no shortage of capital or willing suppliers, but without a stronger demand signal nobody commits to production at scale, and dual-fuel owners will not commit to one fuel if it puts them at a commercial disadvantage.
• Success stories need sharing: an owner that buys B100 consistently is banking money every time.
• Some of that trust that has been built for conventional fuels needs to be transferred into the alternative fuel side as well.

Competing for Molecules

• Competition from aviation and from biogas going into homes is real and double-edged: it grows the feedstock base, but a sector with less certainty and a weaker demand signal risks being left behind: once supply chains have been built around aviation or domestic gas, shipping will have to pay more to pull those molecules back out of them.
• Shipping should use what it has: the marine engine, with a fuel treatment plant, settling tanks, and purifiers on board, can burn fuels other sectors cannot, and the industry should be ambitious about using them.
• Regulation is shipping's other advantage: IMO 2020 showed the whole industry converting the day a rule applied, so once a global rule lands, supply has shown it can be prepared for it.

Infrastructure

• Suppliers are investing in what pays whichever IMO scenario plays out: bunker barges built as chemical tankers, which carry gasoil or fuel oil today and can carry alternative fuels later, and a wider network of locations ready for when the transition comes, even if that is later than expected.
• Some suppliers already trade ethanol and methanol in other parts of their business, so their marine arms can draw on those molecules when demand arrives, and the approval work for alternative fuels is worth doing before the regulation exists.
• Infrastructure cannot be siloed: producers, energy companies, ports, and operators have to work together, under regional frameworks and IMO guidelines, because ships cross jurisdictions.
• Floating and flexible receiving solutions can be deployed far faster than onshore facilities, and the aim is a global network of supply rather than a single winning hub.
• Securing an LNG stem in Singapore has needed far longer notice than the same-day or next-day lead time of conventional fuel; the new licences help, but the industry has to adapt its planning to the new supply chains.

Five Years Out

• At the regulatory level, "a little less conversation and a little more action" would provide the clarity to build infrastructure and certification.
• Within five years regulators will be the ones driving demand, and the hope is for one of the first three of the four regulatory scenarios DNV set out earlier in the day, all of which end in a global deal, rather than the fourth, in which the IMO fails and the EU is left as the only regulator.
• Cargo customers have to be engaged, so that the cost of alternative fuel can be passed through.
• First movers need to succeed, because failure stops the next project.
• Decarbonisation has to be reframed from a cost to be shared into a value to be paid for, with support from international finance.