Image Credit: Ship & Bunker

    •  2.9% average advance in Q4 2025 vs Q4 2024
    •  2025 total was 2% higher than 2024
    •  US tariff policy continues to hit US and Panama volumes
    •  Read the full report here: shipandbunker.com/bi/bunker-volumes

Demand at key marine fuel hubs jumped on a yearly basis in the fourth quarter of 2025, taking 2025's sales 2% higher than 2024 overall, according to the latest market survey of bunker sales volumes in 17 leading global locations.

As in previous quarters, Ship & Bunker and consultancy 2050 Marine Energy surveyed bunker market participants around the world alongside official data where available and found an average rise of 2.9% in volumes in the fourth quarter from the same period of 2024. The year-on-year advance compares with a 4.3% year-on-year gain in Q3. Q4 volumes sequentially were 1.3% higher than in Q3.

For 2025 as a whole, sales were up by 2% versus the same period a year earlier, and reached the highest global sales level since 2019.

The survey covers about 59.7% of the global demand total of 245.1 million mt for 2024 shown by official IMO data.

"Reviewing the global bunker demand during the last quarter of 2025 is a relatively simple and predictable task," Adrian Tolson, founder of 2050 Marine Energy, told Ship & Bunker.

"We can see trends that have been apparent for some time with Asian ports strengthening and some cases setting bunker volume records. 

"We see European ports maintaining strong sales. We can see a small decline in ports that peaked with Red Sea disruptions now returning to a more normal state. 

"And real decline can be seen in the Americas where the impact of tariffs has taken a toll on demand."

Weak Margins

The overarching theme at the end of 2025 was that of an oversupplied bunker market weighed down by intense competition from smaller trading firms limiting margins.

"We saw lower volumes in Q4 2025 and the start of 2026 due to an increasingly competitive market," Jesper Christensen, managing partner of BlackCoral Energy, told Ship & Bunker.

"This has however been offset to an extent in March and April due to the higher prices from the US-Iran war."

At that time oil-market analysts were predicting a large surplus of crude production from OPEC+ members would deliver some of the lowest prices seen since the early 2020s in early 2026.

"Q4 2025 was a quarter defined by complacency," Rakesh Sharma, managing partner of FLEX Commodities, told Ship & Bunker.

"The VLSFO market was oversupplied, East-West arbs were shut, and most participants were positioned for a bearish 2026 driven by a projected crude surplus. Singapore premiums were capped, Fujairah was seeing its weakest sales in months, and the HSFO complex was caught between volatile stock swings and steadily declining flat prices."

This was the backdrop for the start of the current Middle East conflict at the end of February, which overturned all views of the global energy markets.

"In hindsight, the market was sleepwalking into the most severe supply disruption in modern bunker history," Sharma said.

New Uncertainty

Uncertainty over excessive supply in the market has now been firmly replaced by concerns over potential demand shortages, and the outlook for 2026 is uncertain to a degree higher than at this point in any year in recent memory.

"This is the bunker market that existed before February 28th, 2026," 2050 Marine Energy's Tolson said.

"On that day everything changed, supply disruption rapidly spread across the bunker supply chain as its fragility became readily apparent. 

"Simple predictability of bunker demand has gone; we will see ports gain and lose significantly as future data comes in, but this is not the same market structure and in the coming months we will see that."

Methodology

As with the previous surveys the areas covered by the survey are Singapore, the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) hub, Fujairah, the US Gulf, South Korea, Russia, the Gibraltar Strait, Hong Kong, Panama, Zhoushan, Japan, New York, West Africa, South Africa, the Canary Islands, Los Angeles/Long Beach and Turkey. Data is sourced from a combination of market participants and official records.

The full breakdown of the survey results, including sales volumes in each bunkering region for Q4 2025 and 2024, as well as 2025 and 2024 as a whole is available by clicking here.