According to WPB, the Middle East war is reshaping the global marine-fuel market as bunker prices remain more than 70% above pre-war levels, shipowners move away from long-term supply contracts and refuelling demand shifts from traditional hubs such as Fujairah toward alternative ports including Colombo, Salalah and Port Louis. The changes show that the conflict is affecting not only the price of marine fuel but also when, where and how shipping companies secure the fuel required to keep vessels operating.
More than seven months after the conflict began, elevated bunker prices and continuing volatility have made shipowners increasingly reluctant to commit to large volumes for six months or a year. Instead, buyers are relying more heavily on spot purchases and shorter contracts that allow them to react to daily price movements and changing voyage patterns.
Some contracts that previously covered six months or one year have shortened to quarterly or even monthly arrangements. For vessel operators, the attraction is flexibility. When bunker prices are extremely high, buying only the minimum required to reach the next port can reduce exposure to a sudden price decline after a large fuel purchase.
This represents a significant change in procurement behaviour. Marine fuel has traditionally been purchased through a combination of term contracts and spot deals, but the current level of uncertainty has increased the value of keeping procurement decisions open until much closer to the vessel’s actual refuelling date.
The change also reflects disruption to shipping routes. Blockades, attacks and diversions around major Middle Eastern waterways have altered voyage schedules and made it harder for owners to predict which bunkering hub a vessel will reach weeks or months in advance. A contract tied to one location becomes less useful when the ship itself may later be rerouted.
Fujairah is at the centre of this shift. The UAE port has long been one of the world’s major bunkering hubs because of its position outside the Strait of Hormuz and its proximity to the Gulf’s main shipping routes. The conflict has challenged that advantage as security risks and supply disruptions around the UAE have increased.
Port data already show how severe the change has been. Fujairah sold approximately 227,950 cubic metres of bunker fuel in August, down 65.2% from the same month of 2025. Sales were also 2.7% below July, despite a temporary improvement during the previous month.
The decline does not mean Fujairah has ceased operating as a major bunker centre. It does show that the port has lost a substantial share of the activity it handled before the war as vessels adjust routes, suppliers face tighter inventories and buyers diversify procurement.
Supply constraints have added to the pressure. Marine-fuel suppliers around Fujairah have faced limited availability of both high-sulphur and low-sulphur fuel oil at different stages of the crisis, while delivered premiums have remained extremely elevated compared with pre-war levels.
By early October, delivered 0.5% sulphur marine fuel in Fujairah was assessed around $980 per metric ton, while 380 CST high-sulphur bunker fuel was near $700 per ton. These prices followed months of supply disruption and unusually high premiums over underlying regional cargo values.
The broader high-sulphur fuel-oil market also remains tight. Middle Eastern disruptions have removed an estimated 800,000 metric tons per month of high-sulphur fuel oil supply since February, while disruptions affecting Russian refining have reduced additional volumes from the global market.
The shortage has contributed to much higher spot premiums and reinforced the incentive for shipping companies to search for alternative refuelling locations rather than depend on one traditional hub.
Colombo in Sri Lanka, Salalah in Oman and Port Louis in Mauritius are among the ports receiving more bunker enquiries and more frequent calls than before the conflict. These locations were previously used more selectively by some operators, but the war has increased their strategic value.
The change does not necessarily mean every ship is bypassing Fujairah. Instead, operators are spreading their fuel requirements across a larger network of ports to reduce dependence on one location and preserve flexibility if security or supply conditions change.
Colombo benefits from its position close to major east-west shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean. Ships rerouted around unstable Middle Eastern waters can use the port without making a major deviation from several Asia-Europe and intra-Asian routes.
Salalah offers another alternative on the Arabian Sea side of Oman and can serve vessels without requiring them to enter the inner Gulf. Its location becomes particularly valuable when shipowners want to reduce exposure to Hormuz while remaining close to Middle Eastern trade routes.
Port Louis in Mauritius has also gained importance as more traffic uses the Indian Ocean and routes around southern Africa. The longer Cape of Good Hope route increases fuel consumption and creates additional opportunities for bunker suppliers at African and Indian Ocean ports.
Demand growth in Africa and South Asia is therefore partly a consequence of forced rerouting rather than simply lower fuel prices at those locations. Ships that previously purchased fuel in the Gulf may now need to refuel elsewhere because their entire voyage has changed.
Pakistan is another example of this diversification. Vitol began supplying bunker fuel at Gwadar Port in July, creating a new location outside the Strait of Hormuz that can serve ships operating around the Gulf and northern Arabian Sea.
Gwadar’s significance lies partly in geography. The port sits outside Hormuz, which allows vessels to access bunker supply without entering the Strait. For suppliers, this creates another point from which fuel can be positioned closer to ships whose routes have been altered by the conflict.
The shift is therefore broader than a simple movement from one port to another. The bunker market is becoming more fragmented, with procurement spread across additional locations and contracts becoming shorter at the same time.
That fragmentation can create higher logistical costs. Suppliers must position fuel at more ports, manage smaller and less predictable customer volumes and maintain flexibility across a wider geographical network.
Shipowners also face a more complex optimisation problem. The cheapest bunker price is no longer necessarily the cheapest total option if reaching that port requires a diversion, additional war-risk insurance, longer waiting time or exposure to a higher-risk maritime area.
The relevant calculation increasingly involves the full voyage economics: bunker price, fuel consumption, distance, speed, insurance, port fees, availability and the probability that a vessel may need to change route again.
This helps explain why some owners are buying smaller stems more frequently. Paying a slightly higher price at the next safe port can be economically preferable to purchasing a very large volume in advance and then finding that the vessel’s route has changed.
The shift also affects the relationship between bunker fuel and freight. Higher marine-fuel costs increase vessel operating expenses, but the effect on freight is not mechanical. Freight rates also depend on vessel supply, charter demand, voyage duration, insurance, congestion and owner risk appetite.
For the bitumen market, this distinction is particularly important. No evidence currently establishes that the change in global bunker procurement has caused a specific increase in heated bitumen-tanker freight.
However, bunker fuel represents part of the operating cost of every bitumen voyage. If marine-fuel prices remain more than 70% above pre-war levels, the cost base for vessels carrying bitumen also rises, even if the final freight quotation does not move by the same percentage.
The impact can become larger when the voyage itself lengthens. A heated bitumen tanker that has to take a longer route consumes more fuel, spends more days at sea and must continue using energy to maintain cargo temperature throughout the journey.
Bitumen therefore has an additional operational sensitivity compared with some other liquid cargoes. The product must remain heated, which means longer voyages can increase both propulsion fuel consumption and the energy required to maintain the cargo within the appropriate temperature range.
That does not mean the bunker-market shift automatically makes every bitumen cargo more expensive. Vessel efficiency, charter structure, route, bunker grade, cargo size and the location of the loading and discharge ports all influence the final cost.
The more defensible market conclusion is that high bunker prices and more fragmented refuelling patterns are increasing the logistical complexity surrounding petroleum-product shipping, including bitumen.
The change in Fujairah also matters indirectly because the port is part of the wider energy and shipping infrastructure surrounding the Gulf. Reduced bunker activity there can alter vessel scheduling and the availability of fuel for ships entering or leaving regional petroleum trades.
At the same time, Fujairah should not be described as having lost its strategic importance. It remains a major storage, trading and marine-fuel centre, and bunker volumes could recover if security improves and supply becomes more reliable.
The emergence of alternative ports is better understood as diversification rather than permanent replacement. Shipowners are building more options into their routes because the cost of depending on one hub has increased.
The same principle is visible in fuel purchasing contracts. Long-term procurement has not disappeared, but buyers are placing greater value on short commitments that allow them to change supplier or port when conditions deteriorate.
If the conflict persists, these changes could become more structural. Suppliers may invest more heavily in ports that previously played secondary roles, while owners may continue splitting bunker purchases across multiple hubs even after immediate security pressures ease.
For Sri Lanka, Oman, Mauritius and Pakistan, this creates a potential opportunity to capture a larger share of the bunker market. Whether that demand remains after the conflict will depend on pricing, storage capacity, fuel quality, credit terms and the efficiency of local bunker operations.
For Fujairah, the key variables will be restoration of supply, security conditions around the UAE and the ability of the port to regain the confidence of vessel operators.
The next indicators should include monthly bunker sales at Fujairah, delivered marine-fuel premiums, bunker volumes in Colombo and Salalah, activity at Gwadar, and whether shipowners return to longer-term procurement arrangements.
The structure of contracts may be just as informative as headline fuel prices. If buyers begin returning to six- or twelve-month agreements, that would suggest confidence in route stability and price visibility is improving. Continued reliance on monthly and spot purchases would indicate that uncertainty remains embedded in the market.
For the bitumen industry, the most useful indicators will remain actual heated-tanker freight quotations, voyage duration, bunker surcharges, war-risk charges and changes in routing rather than bunker prices alone.
The current development therefore represents a broader restructuring of shipping logistics rather than simply another fuel-price increase. Marine fuel is more expensive, contracts are shorter and demand is being distributed across a wider range of ports.
For bitumen traders, this does not yet justify claiming a confirmed bunker-driven freight surge. It does mean that the shipping cost environment has become more complex and that fuel procurement, route selection and security now play a larger role in determining the delivered cost of Gulf and Asian cargoes.
By WPB
bunker fuel, marine fuel prices, Fujairah bunker market, Colombo bunkering, Salalah bunkering, Port Louis bunker fuel, Gwadar bunkering, Vitol bunkers, Middle East shipping, bunker prices, marine fuel procurement, spot bunker purchases, fuel oil market, HSFO, LSFO, bitumen freight, bitumen shipping, shipping logistics
