Marine fuel is typically bought and sold on a price per ton basis. But price alone does not reflect what bunkering really costs. Consider two suppliers:

Supplier A: $600 per ton plus delays, quantity shortfalls, and recurring claims.

Supplier B: $601 per ton, delivered on time, within tolerance and with no disputes.

On paper, Supplier A appears cheaper. In practice, once delay, disruption, claim handling, and energy delivered are accounted for, Supplier A is materially more expensive. Fuelsure’s analysis of thousands of bunker deliveries and claims shows that the true cost of bunkering is driven not only by invoice price, but by how much usable energy is delivered, how reliably fuel meets specification, how much operational disruption occurs, and how quickly disputes are resolved when issues arise. Small per-ton inefficiencies compound rapidly at fleet level and, when scaled across global bunker volumes, translate into multi‑billion‑dollar costs for the industry.

Rather than treating quantity, quality, and delay problems as isolated incidents, Fuelsure’s platform shows that bunker risk follows predictable behavioural patterns linked to fuel type, port conditions, supplier practices and documentation quality. Understanding these patterns is the key to lowering the true cost of fuel.

The bunker market has traditionally optimised for price per ton. As Kenneth Juhls, CEO of Tideform and AuctionConnect, notes:
‘‘For decades, bunker procurement has focused primarily on price per ton, yet the true economics of bunkering are far more complex.
When energy delivered, operational disruption, and dispute outcomes are considered alongside price, it becomes clear that stronger
transparency and better market intelligence are essential for helping procurement teams understand the real cost of fuel and make more informed decisions.

When fuels were relatively uniform and operational margins were forgiving, this made sense. That world no longer exists. Modern bunker fuels vary materially in calorific value, stability, and compatibility.

A ton of one very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) blend can deliver meaningfully more energy than a ton of another. The industry is moving toward energy‐based thinking, measured in megajoules per ton, because energy delivered defines propulsion performance and voyage efficiency. At the same time, the operational cost of bunkering has increased. Congestion in key hubs, barge availability constraints, and quality‐related disputes can turn a routine delivery into a source of lost time, idle vessels, and working capital drag.
Combining delivery timestamps with Statements of Facts, vessel instructions, and Automatic Identification System (AIS) movement data provides a more complete operational picture. Used together, these sources help distinguish between supplier driven disruption, vessel-side constraints, and port congestion, improving accountability without oversimplification.

Crucially, not every quality deviation results in a formal claim. A significant share of off-spec or marginal deliveries are absorbed\operationally through engine derating, fuel segregation, blending, or internal settlement, masking their true economic
impact.

The bunkering industry is on the brink of a paradigm shift. Price per ton is no longer a sufficient metric; true cost encompasses energy content, quality, reliability, operational performance, and behavioural predictability. The Fuelsure Transparency Index provides a framework for capturing these dimensions and for driving the conversation toward measurable improvements in practice. By adopting energy-based evaluation, behavioural benchmarking, and better-aligned incentive structures, the industry can turn opacity into insight, disputes into collaboration, and cost into competitive advantage.

Source: Fuelsure