--- title: The new fuel regime of maritime description: Propeller shares thoughts on the changing dynamics of maritime fuel in a time of shifting geopolitical and procurement. image: https://propellervc.com/hubfs/Gemini_Generated_Image_sgpy05sgpy05sgpy.jpeg --- [![Propeller Logo](https://propellervc.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/PRO-HubUI-CHAD%20EDIT/images/logo_propeller.svg) PROPELLER](https://propellervc.com/) [Portfolio](https://propellervc.com/portfolio) [Team](https://propellervc.com/about) More [Press](https://propellervc.com/press-room) [Blog](https://propellervc.com/blog) [Ocean MBA](https://propellervc.com/blog/tag/ocean-mba) MENU [PITCH US](https://propellervc.com/pitch) [![Propeller Logo](https://propellervc.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/PRO-HubUI-CHAD%20EDIT/images/logo_propeller.svg) PROPELLER](https://propellervc.com/) CLOSE [Portfolio](https://propellervc.com/portfolio) [Team](https://propellervc.com/about) [Press](https://propellervc.com/press-room) [Blog](https://propellervc.com/blog) [Ocean MBA](https://propellervc.com/blog/tag/ocean-mba) [PITCH US](https://propellervc.com/pitch) ![Background Logo](https://propellervc.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/PRO-HubUI-CHAD%20EDIT/images/logo_propeller.svg) [Ocean](https://propellervc.com/blog/topic/ocean) | [Startups](https://propellervc.com/blog/topic/startups) | [Investing](https://propellervc.com/blog/topic/investing) | [Climate](https://propellervc.com/blog/topic/climate) # The new fuel regime of maritime [![](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/b9b3482ecf341e32013a53cee5f60693) Steven Fox](https://propellervc.com/blog/author/steven-fox) October 20th, 2026 | 5 min. read - Share This Article - - - - [mailto:?body=https://propellervc.com/blog/the-new-fuel-regime-of-maritime](mailto:?body=https://propellervc.com/blog/the-new-fuel-regime-of-maritime) ![The new fuel regime of maritime](https://propellervc.com/hubfs/Gemini_Generated_Image_sgpy05sgpy05sgpy.jpeg) Here at Propeller, maritime shipping is one of the core investable sectors within our broader ocean thesis. There are changes happening in the sector that are unprecedented in both dollars spent and speed of deployment. To date, we've backed five companies tackling this space directly: [Blaze](https://blazeenergytech.com/), [Vema](https://www.vema.earth/), [Calcarea](https://calcarea.com/), [Fleet](https://www.fleetrobotics.ai/) and one more company in stealth. Why are we so aggressively investing in the next generation of moving heavy things across the water? Because the industry is undergoing a brutal, rapid, and incredibly lucrative physical rewiring. To understand where shipping is going, you need to understand two foundational realities about how it currently works. **1. Shipping is an OPEX business. And fuel *is* the business.** When you look at a shipping company's ledger, fuel isn't just a line item — it’s half the books! For deep-sea trades, fuel routinely accounts for 40% to 50% of total voyage expenses. A large co mmercial vessel can burn through 200 to 300 tons of fuel a day. At current market prices, that’s easily $150,000 evaporating out of the smokestack every 24 hours. Fuel efficiency isn't a sustainability initiative in shipping; it's the difference between profit and loss. ![](https://propellervc.com/hs-fs/hubfs/undefined-Oct-20-2026-02-53-33-0557-PM.jpeg?width=2048&height=1143&name=undefined-Oct-20-2026-02-53-33-0557-PM.jpeg) **2. Margins are *normally* painfully tight.** Yes, the post-pandemic supply chain chaos of 2021 temporarily printed money for carriers (operating margins famously broke 50%), and the madness in the Strait of Hormuz has opened a second boon, but this market always tends to find supply/demand equilibrium. For instance, by the end of 2025, operating profit in the container shipping sector collapsed from the billions back down into the millions, plunging carriers back into a fierce profit squeeze. In a normal market, this is a low-margin knife fight. When margins are tight, a single-digit percentage increase in fuel efficiency or operational profit isn't a nice-to-have. It is deeply, desperately sought after. ## **The Great Fuel Migration** For nearly 100 years, maritime fuel was blissfully simple: buy the cheapest, dirtiest sludge possible (Heavy Fuel Oil, or HFO) that you knew would be available at every global port. That simplicity is dead. The history of maritime fuels is undergoing a rapid transition from a century of HFO, into the 2020s decade of VLSFO (Very Low Sulfur Fuel Oil), into the emerging regime of LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) — all while a chaotic mix of alternative fuels captures market share left and right. Today, nearly 2% of the global fleet tonnage is alternative-fuel capable, with methanol, ammonia, and hydrogen dominating the 2025 orderbooks. Why the sudden scramble? Three massive tectonic shifts: ### **1. A Regulatory Guillotine** Escalating regulatory decarbonization goals are fundamentally changing the math. The IMO 2020 mandate slashed allowable sulfur content from 3.5% to 0.5%, immediately driving up fuel expenses for operators by 15% to 20% overnight. Now, with carbon intensity indicators (CII) and the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) taxing carbon directly, burning the cheap stuff is becoming prohibitively expensive, and will only continue to escalate. ### **2. Shifting Geography and Bunkering Complexity** The geographic centers of global production and export are continuously shifting. Manufacturing, raw material sourcing and the centers of consumption and processing have all shifted over the last couple of decades-dispersing from an Atlantic-centric regime, to China, to places like India and Brazil.   Tied to this is a severe logistical headache: bunkering (refueling) has become wildly complex. As a shipowner, you need to chase the money and routes, but you can’t also assume that each port will carry the fuel that you need, at the price you need it. This, of course, makes a strong argument for propulsion assist technologies - like wind assist! ### **3. Geopolitical Supply Chain Threats** The geographic chokepoints of fuel supply itself have become threatened in unprecedented ways. Look no further than the Strait of Hormuz crisis. When the U.S.-Iran conflict flared up, a waterway that normally handles 20 million barrels of oil a day (roughly 20% of global consumption) saw traffic effectively drop to zero. Brent crude spiked past $126 a barrel, and war-risk insurance premiums jumped 4x in a matter of days. You can no longer bank your OPEX strategy on uninterrupted global peace. ## **The New Regime: Volatility and the Multi-Fuel Future** What these shifts thrust the maritime and port space into is a new reality where price, fuel type and volume are unpredictable. There is no silver bullet waiting in the wings. The future of maritime shipping is distinctly not single-fuel (at least for now). Operators will have to manage complex, multi-fuel fleets dynamically, hedging against carbon taxes in Europe, navigating green corridors in Asia, and avoiding geopolitical landmines (currently in the Middle East, but who knows where next). All this is resulting in a couple of tectonic market shifts: 1) CAPEX - vessels are being retrofitted, seeking margin improvement amongst these changes, and new-builds are prioritizing integration of the latest technologies pointed at future fuels; 2) OPEX - offtakes for new fuels are causing maritime companies to seek offtakes to secure volume and price; owners are looking for new tools to help them manage real-time complexities; 3) Re-imagining - we are seeing more and more bets on entirely new regimes of maritime transport: new classes of vessels, or new ways to transport. If there is a time to disrupt a heavily regulated, globally ubiquitous supply chain and logistics regime, it is when volatility causes instability. ## **The Sneaky Things We're Watching** Amongst all this, we’ve got our eyes on a couple of techno-optimist sub-trends: 1. **Go upstream on fuels:** while everyone is fighting over ammonia vs. methanol, we are focused on the building blocks that will make all fuels cheaper at the pump, regardless of chemistry. We invested in [Vema](https://www.vema.earth/), who are working with shipping companies to supply building blocks for fuels instead of the final product. 2. **Build fuel agnostic:** Instead of focusing on which fuel will win, focus on how to make existing solutions work with new fuels and new regs. We’ve invested in two companies – [Blaze](https://blazeenergytech.com/) and [Calcarea](https://calcarea.com/) – that help shippers become fuel agnostic or perform onboard carbon capture and storage. 3. **Skip the fuel entirely: Electrification and Nuclear.**Why argue about alternative liquids when you can just split atoms or use electrons? A growing contingent of companies are exploring this, and we’ve developed a thesis on how we think nuclear and electrification will develop in this space. 4. **Reimagining the form factor.**We are considering backing founders moving away from legacy vessel designs toward entirely new vehicle types that are natively built for advanced hydrodynamics and increasingly remote and/or autonomous operation. 5. **The Port-Maritime Interface.**Ships are getting smarter, but ports need to keep up. The digital and physical handshake between a vessel and the port is undergoing its own massive, highly investable software and hardware shift.   The ocean covers 71% of the planet, and it carries 80% of global trade. The hardware and software moving that trade is being ripped down to the studs and rebuilt. We plan to own a big piece of the new foundation. [![Propeller Logo](https://propellervc.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/PRO-HubUI-CHAD%20EDIT/images/logo_propeller.svg) PROPELLER](https://propellervc.com/) © 2026 Propeller All Rights Reserved. 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