Steve Esau, Chief Operating Officer of multi-sector industry coalition SEA-LNG, highlights the challenges facing shipping decarbonisation. He also points to the growing role of the methane pathway, particularly amid the expansion of liquefied biomethane bunkering and uncertainty around the IMO net-zero framework: 

Shipping’s decarbonisation debate can sometimes feel divorced from commercial reality. Ideologically driven fuel preferences, fragmented regulatory signals, and a tendency to celebrate announcements rather than deliveries have created a great deal of noise. SEA-LNG’s latest View from the Bridge report, published earlier this year to mark our first decade as a coalition, is our attempt to cut through that noise with data, evidence and candour.

The headline numbers are significant. Since 2016, the number of vessels using LNG as a marine fuel has grown tenfold to 875 in operation today, with a further 653 on order. Investment across the dual-fuel fleet and associated fuel supply chains has exceeded $150 billion over the decade. LNG now represents 79% of all alternatively fuelled tonnage ordered in 2025. Whatever the critics say, the market has spoken clearly about where the practical, scalable solution lies.

But the report also confronts the challenges honestly. The orderbook for alternatively fuelled vessels fell from 551 in 2024 to 275 in 2025. Regulatory uncertainty following the IMO’s decision to delay its Net Zero Framework has chilled investment confidence. Shipyard capacity remains constrained. And the question of methane emissions, both from engines and the supply chain, continues to demand serious answers, not dismissals.

Those answers, as our report makes clear, are increasingly available.

Singapore’s Role Is Pivotal — and Growing

For readers of Manifold Times, the Singapore dimension of this story is particularly important. The Port of Singapore is not just the world’s largest bunkering hub, it is a bellwether for the direction of travel of the entire global marine fuels market.

The scale of LNG bunkering growth in Singapore has been striking. The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) recorded a fourfold increase in LNG bunkering volumes in 2024, reaching nearly 340,000 tonnes. LNG bunker sales continued to grow through 2025, with monthly volumes consistently running 25–30% ahead of the prior year. Singapore now operates three dedicated LNG bunker vessels, with additional capacity being planned as part of MPA’s active programme to scale up LNG bunkering infrastructure.

MPA’s Expression of Interest process in 2025, which drew 14 proposals from 18 companies to expand LNG bunkering services, eight of which included bio-methane and e-methane solutions, signals clearly where Singapore’s ambitions lie. The port is not simply responding to demand. It is actively positioning itself as the regional hub for the full methane decarbonisation pathway: fossil LNG today, liquefied biomethane and e-methane as they scale.

That strategic positioning is well-founded. Asia accounts for the majority of the world’s new LNG dual-fuel vessel orders, driven by the container sector. All ten of the world’s top container lines have now committed to LNG-powered vessels. Yang Ming’s YM Willpower, a 15,500 TEU LNG dual-fuel vessel, completed its first LNG bunkering in Singapore in February this year. The region’s shipbuilding capacity, particularly across Chinese and South Korean yards, means that the vessels to drive this demand are already being built at pace.

Why Methane Remains the Commercial Frontrunner

The commercial logic underpinning the methane pathway is straightforward, but it bears repeating clearly because the debate sometimes loses sight of it.

Energy density matters enormously in commercial shipping. An LNG tank needs to be 1.3 times smaller than a methanol tank for the same energy content, 1.7 times smaller than a liquefied ammonia tank, and three times smaller than a hydrogen tank. On a vessel carrying 20,000-plus TEUs, these are not technical footnotes; they are significant commercial constraints that affect deadweight, cargo capacity and operational economics.

Availability matters equally. LNG is a globally traded commodity with a 2024 market size of approximately 406 million tonnes, roughly 100 times its current consumption as a marine fuel. Singapore sits at the heart of a well-developed LNG supply network. By contrast, the internationally traded markets of methanol and ammonia are a fraction of this size at 5 and 15 million tonnes LNG equivalent, respectively.  And the green versions of ammonia and methanol remain in very limited supply; combined production stands at less than 0.5 million tonnes LNG equivalent globally. The infrastructure to move these fuels from where they are produced to where ships need to bunker simply does not yet exist at any meaningful scale.

Cost of compliance is the third pillar. LNG in its fossil form already delivers greenhouse gas reductions of up to 23% on a well-to-wake basis compared with traditional fuels. Ammonia and methanol produced today, overwhelmingly from fossil methane, carry higher lifecycle emissions. Operators using these fuels need large volumes of expensive green variants to reach emissions parity with LNG. The payback arithmetic does not yet work.

And then there is optionality, the factor that perhaps most clearly separates LNG from its competitors. A dual-fuel LNG vessel can switch between fossil LNG, liquefied biomethane and e-methane as regulations tighten and green fuel supplies grow. No other alternative marine fuel pathway offers that degree of hedge against an uncertain regulatory future.

The Challenge of Getting Regulation Right

The IMO’s delay of its Net Zero Framework in October 2025 was, for many in the industry, deeply frustrating. But it also represents an opportunity to get the regulatory architecture right, and the stakes are high enough that the effort is worth making.

What the maritime industry needs is a single, global decarbonisation framework that is goal-based and technology-neutral. Not a framework that picks preferred fuels, but one that sets clear emissions reduction trajectories and allows the market to find the most cost-effective and practical routes to achieve them. Prescriptive, technology-specific regulations risk locking the industry into pathways that are commercially unviable at scale, or that penalise the first movers who have already committed capital in good faith.

Early adopters must be protected. Ships ordered today will operate for 20 to 25 years. Regulatory frameworks that retrospectively disadvantage LNG investments already made, or that impose double compliance costs by layering regional regimes on top of IMO rules, will destroy the commercial confidence needed to finance the next wave of decarbonisation. That is bad for emissions and bad for the industry.

Compliance pooling mechanisms, flexibility in fleet-level planning, and proportionate non-compliance penalties are all features of a workable framework. So is honest acknowledgement that the alternative fuel supply chains the industry is being asked to pivot towards are not yet commercially ready at scale.

The Pathway Is Clear — The Destination Is Achievable

Across the decade since SEA-LNG was founded, the methane decarbonisation pathway has moved from aspiration to operational reality. Liquefied biomethane is now being bunkered regularly across Europe, with operations spanning at least ten countries and ten major bunker suppliers. The IEA estimates that biomethane could ultimately be produced at one trillion cubic metres annually from organic waste streams alone, representing around 25% of current global natural gas demand. E-methane projects are advancing in Europe, North America, Australia and the Asia Pacific, all fully compatible with existing LNG infrastructure and bunkering systems.

Singapore is well-placed to lead this transition in Asia. The port’s existing LNG bunkering infrastructure, its strong regulatory environment, and MPA’s active development agenda for bio- and e-methane provide a solid foundation. The commercial momentum is building. What is needed now is the regulatory clarity to sustain and accelerate it.

The runway is built. It is time to take off.

Note: SEA-LNG’s 2025-2026 View from the Bridge report is available at sea-lng.org. 

Photo credit: SEA-LNG
Published: 8 April, 2026