Maritime System in Transition
The Decarb Hub's “Maritime System in Transition” series explores decarbonisation, resilience, and the future of global shipping and is part of the Fuel Adoption Programme. This series is designed to provide decision-makers with the evidence and frameworks needed to accelerate a credible, well-sequenced maritime energy transition. Future publications will build on this foundation, examining how infrastructure, finance, fleet, and policy can come together to create a coherent and resilient system.
What is the “Building the sustainable maritime fuel supply chain” report about?
“Building the sustainable maritime fuel supply chain” is a report by Lloyd’s Register Maritime Decarbonisation Hub and the first publication in the “Maritime System in Transition” series.
The report provides a global, evidence-based assessment of where alternative maritime fuels, including e fuels and selected sustainable biofuels, are most likely to be produced, exported and bunkered first, and what this means for near term infrastructure investment.
What’s inside
The report brings together four complementary analytical lenses to identify plausible early production-to-bunkering dynamics:
- Mapping of existing bunkering demand: estimating port-level marine fuel volumes to show where demand is concentrated and which ports might be positioned to scale new fuels first.
- Mapping of prospective fuel production and distribution ports: identifying candidate fuel distribution ports linked to e-fuels and selected sustainable biofuel projects, using screening criteria such as proximity to ports and industrial clusters, and minimum project scale.
- Overlay and qualitative interpretation: pairing demand hubs with candidate fuel distribution ports to highlight early potential trade patterns and assess where industrial integration can reduce delivery risk and improve bankability.
- Multi-criteria port screening with the Port Explorer Tool: applying a framework to surface next-wave fuel distribution ports, bunkering hubs, or dual-role locations, by assessing resource potential, demand signals, land feasibility, and delivery-risk factors that are not visible from bunkering volumes or project databases alone.
Who is this report for?
It is written for organisations and stakeholders who need to prioritise capital allocation, partnerships, and transition strategies:
- Port Authorities
- Terminal Operators
- Bunker Suppliers
- Fuel Producers
- Shipowners
- Cargo Interests
- Financiers
- Policymakers
Key findings:
The report supports near-term decision making by mapping where sustainable marine fuels are most likely to be produced, exported, and bunkered first, and what this implies for investable infrastructure pathways.
It identifies priority ports and trade-route pairings that could enable early alternative fuel availability, highlighting how focusing early investment on a shortlist of strategically positioned hubs and export gateways could accelerate availability and utilisation of sustainable maritime fuels.
The analysis leads to five headline findings:
- Bunkering demand is highly concentrated. The top 19 bunkering ports account for around half of global bunkering volumes, indicating that a small number of locations can unlock disproportionate impact and utilisation for early infrastructure.
- Emerging sustainable fuel supply is often geographically decoupled from today’s demand hubs. Many credible production and distribution nodes sit outside the current top bunkering ports, so early scaling depends on linking exporters to demand hubs through practical trade-route pairings while still recognising that a subset of locations can leverage local production and local demand in parallel.
- Co-location between sustainable maritime fuels production facilities and industrial/port energy clusters is already a dominant development strategy. This is signalling that access to established utilities, logistics, and permitting environments is central to early project economics.
- The next wave of early-adopter ports is not limited to today’s biggest bunkering hubs. Feasibility factors, such as renewables, land, governance, and local benefits, can surface high-potential dual-role ports that mapping may miss.
- Early trade in sustainable fuels is likely to develop in three overlapping regional patterns (Figure 1), shaped by the distribution of demand and production.
- Imported fuels into major demand hubs (e.g. Singapore, Japan, Korea): Demand is concentrated in a small number of large bunkering hubs, particularly Singapore, with Japan and Korea also heavily import-reliant due to limited domestic production. These hubs are likely to be supplied via early trade routes from export-oriented regions for example, the Middle East, India and Australia, leveraging established infrastructure and strategic geographic positioning.
- A likely mix of domestic production and imports (Europe): Europe combines a distributed base of e-fuel and biofuel production with significant bunkering demand across major and mid-sized ports. As a result, demand is expected to be met through a balance of domestic supply and imports, with policy frameworks playing a key role in determining the relative competitiveness and scale of each.
- Domestic supply with export potential (Americas, Africa, parts of Asia): These regions show strong alignment between production sites and bunkering hubs, enabling early domestic supply, while also hosting several export-oriented projects. In particular, areas with limited local demand such as parts of Africa and South America are likely to develop export-first models, supplying international markets including Europe and Asia.