India’s Green Bunkering Ambition Runs into a Price Problem

India has the coastline, the refinery base and the cargo traffic to become a serious alternative marine-fuel hub. What it does not yet have is a commercial case that convinces a ship operator to buy fuel here rather than in Singapore — and a new study puts a number on the gap.

A DNV study prepared for the International Maritime Organization’s GreenVoyage2050 programme, titled Study on Potential Demand and Pricing of Alternative Marine Fuels in India, finds meaningful long-term demand potential but warns that delivered cost and port-call economics, not production economics, will decide whether Indian ports win that trade.

Indian ports recorded roughly 2.25 million tonnes of marine fuel sales in 2024. Singapore, the region’s dominant bunkering centre, sold 54.92 million tonnes over the same period.

That is not a modest shortfall — it is a structural difference in market depth, and it explains why the study’s roadmap begins narrowly rather than nationally. The projected demand for alternative fuels at Indian ports is 42–65 petajoules by 2035 and 113–293 petajoules by 2047, depending on the scenario. Because petajoules measure energy rather than weight, the volumes translate into materially different tonnages across methanol, ammonia and biofuel blends — which is precisely why port planners cannot size storage and bunker-vessel fleets off a single headline number.

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