Hormuz is squeezing the fuel ships run on

Owners now buy fuel in small lots, on short contracts and at more ports than before the war.

Reuters reported from the Singapore International Bunkering Conference that buyers have switched to spot and shorter-term purchases to cope with volatile prices. They are also looking for more places to refuel. Peter Grunwaldt, chief executive of Seascale Energy and head of bunkering at Hafnia, explained the logic.¹

Equatorial Marine Fuel's executive director Choong Zhen Mao said term contracts had shortened to a quarter or even a month, against six months or one year before the war.¹ Bunker Holding, the world's largest seller by volume, confirms that longer contracts have become less common.¹

Ports used only sporadically before, such as Port Louis in Mauritius, Colombo in Sri Lanka and Salalah in Oman, are now used more often.¹ Hostilities around Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, which used to be a top supplier, drove the change.¹

Less fuel oil leaves the Gulf and Russia, and delivery windows lengthen at the biggest hubs.

Vitol's Asia head, Kieran Gallagher, said high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) flows through Hormuz, including Iranian supplies, are at least 800,000 metric tons a month below February. Kpler data show those exports averaged about 3.7 million tons a month from January 2025 to February 2026.²

Attacks on Russian refineries add an estimated further loss of 1 million tons a month of fuel oil. Spot premiums for 380-cst HSFO hovered near $50 a ton in the week of the report, against $5.10 on February 27th, 2026, according to LSEG data.²

Delivery times have grown. ENGINE's outlook of October 13th put recommended lead times for very-low-sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) in Singapore at 11 to 18 days, up from 10 to 15 days a week earlier.⁴ This figure comes from an OilPrice analysis by Cyril Widdershoven, senior adviser at Blue Water Strategy, who cites the ENGINE outlook.

Fujairah shows the partial recovery. Bunkering there has returned to about 40% of its pre-war level, according to industry comments reported by FreightWaves.³ Fuel oil imports at Fujairah were 2.6 million tons in the third quarter, against 845,000 tons in the second quarter, per a Reuters report of October 1st cited by OilPrice.⁴

Asia, Africa, Europe and the Gulf each face a different version of the squeeze.

Asia. Singapore bunker prices more than doubled after the war began on February 28th, and low-sulphur fuel passed $1,000 a metric ton by March 11th, 2026. Some ships struggled to refuel there.⁵ FreightWaves put Singapore VLSFO at $878.50 a ton on September 11th, against $433.50 on January 1st.³

Africa. Bunker Holding's chief operating officer Mikkel Kannegaard reported stronger sales in Africa after more vessels rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope. He added that demand may not persist as the Suez Canal reopens to more traffic.⁶ World Bunkering recorded much higher demand at Port Louis from late March and tightening availability at Walvis Bay.⁷

Europe. In March, Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp and Mediterranean ports stayed well supplied. Rotterdam VLSFO stood at $755 a ton on March 10th, against $1,052 in Singapore.⁵ In September FreightWaves still listed Rotterdam at about $731 a ton and Fujairah at $1,005.³

The Gulf. Vitol began bunkering at Pakistan's Gwadar Port in July, outside the Strait of Hormuz, to serve customers operating in the Gulf region.¹

Higher fuel costs are passed to shippers through surcharges, and the pass-through differs by trade.

Maersk introduced a temporary Emergency Bunker Surcharge from March 25th and Hapag-Lloyd an Emergency Fuel Surcharge for sailings from March 23rd.⁷ On contracted container business, carriers recover costs through negotiated bunker adjustment factors or emergency surcharges. On spot trades, recovery depends on vessel supply, demand, port congestion and rerouting.³

Older ships pay more. The St. Louis Fed estimated the effect of the early 2026 fuel shock on a typical China to US West Coast voyage. Fuel cost rose from $155 to $269 per 20-foot container on a newer ship, and from $360 to $626 on an older one.³

The financing burden is large. OilPrice's analysis calculates that an extra $100 per ton adds $200,000 to a 2,000-ton purchase. It adds that smaller operators would be most exposed if lenders tighten terms.⁴ The credit point is the analyst's view, not a reported event.

Fuel can be bought, and the shortage of March and April has eased, so the squeeze may stay a cost problem.

FreightWaves reported in September that industry executives said the outright shortage of bunkers seen in March and April had abated. Operators no longer faced problems sourcing and loading marine fuel at major hubs. FreightWaves described a shift from an availability crisis to a price and volatility problem.³

Bunker Holding expects its 2026 sales to fall slightly below 2025, to just under 24 million metric tons, as traffic out of the Arab Gulf drops and the market fragments.⁶ Vitol also said conditions in the low-sulphur fuel oil market are more benign, helped by higher exports from China and Nigeria's Dangote refinery.²

The American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobby, argues that longer shipping routes, refining losses and war-risk costs all keep fuel markets tight beyond Hormuz alone. It reports Persian Gulf refined-product exports at only about 20% to 30% of pre-conflict levels.⁸

Our reading: these views fit together. Fuel is available, at a high and unstable price, and buyers have changed how they buy. The test is whether delivery windows keep lengthening, as the ENGINE figures suggest for Singapore.⁴

Confidence is medium: the buying shift is well documented, and its freight effect depends on events not yet seen.

Confidence: medium. The change in buying patterns rests on named executives at a trade conference, reported by Reuters.¹ The effect on freight rates is less certain. It depends on whether Hormuz flows recover and on how carriers price surcharges.³

Primary reading. Short contracts and frequent small purchases leave owners exposed to price swings and to delivery delays, and move that risk onto the ships' charterers and cargo owners through surcharges.^1,7

Strongest alternative. The squeeze could ease as Suez traffic returns and Gulf flows recover, which would leave the new buying pattern as a temporary episode. Bunker Holding itself questions whether African demand will persist.⁶

What would change this view. Falling lead times in Singapore, or Fujairah bunkering returning toward its pre-war level, would favour the alternative. Rising lead times or more emergency surcharges would favour the primary reading.^4,3

Shipowners, cargo owners, lenders and lawyers each have a separate exposure to fuel timing and fuel terms.

• Shipowners and managers: check how many days of fuel each voyage carries, and which ports serve as the fallback if the planned stop slips.¹
• Cargo owners and charterers: read the emergency fuel and bunker surcharge clauses in carrier contracts, and ask how often they are reset.⁷
• Lenders and private equity (PE) owners of shipping assets: ask how fuel purchases are financed, since higher prices make an unchanged credit line buy fewer tons.⁴
• Law firms: review who bears fuel price risk in time charters and bunker supply contracts that were written for longer terms.¹

1. Mideast war alters global bunker buying patterns, industry execs say. Reuters, October 16th, 2026
2. Global fuel oil market stays tight as conflicts hit Mideast, Russia supplies, Vitol says. Reuters, October 16th, 2026
3. Container shipping fuel prices remain elevated as supply fears ease. FreightWaves, September 16th, 2026
4. Hormuz Is Turning Shipping’s Fuel Bill Into a Supply Crisis. OilPrice.com, October 18th, 2026
5. Asia bunker premiums hit record highs, some ships struggle to refuel. Reuters, March 11th, 2026
6. Bunker Holding expects marine fuel sales to dip in 2026 as war fragments market. Reuters, October 15th, 2026
7. Hormuz disruption exposes weaknesses in marine fuel supply, pricing and risk systems. World Bunkering, May 12th, 2026
8. Beyond Hormuz: The Pressures Keeping Fuel Markets Tight. American Petroleum Institute, October 7th, 2026