The maritime shipping industry was poised to accelerate its march towards alternative fuels – including biofuel, ammonia, methanol, wind, battery power, and hydrogen – in response to the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) proposed Net-Zero Framework (NZF). However, the one-year postponement of the NZF vote at October’s Extraordinary Session of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC ES) has instead created uncertainty. 

The NZF would have set binding targets for reducing the carbon intensity of marine fuels, establishing a market mechanism of credits and penalties to encourage cleaner fuels or technologies. Resulting revenue would support clean-fuel adoption and a just transition in developing countries via an IMO Net-Zero Fund.

The delay to the NZF vote came during a year where enthusiasm for alternative fuels appeared to have slowed amongst maritime shipping leaders. The ICS Maritime Barometer 2024-25 survey – which canvassed C-suite executives across the global shipping industry on risk resilience, future-proofing, and decarbonisation last year – detected a stagnating interest in alternative fuels. This was accompanied by growing concerns over geopolitical instability, with the issue ranking as the highest risk for maritime leaders for the second year in a row. The findings would appear to suggest that shipping leaders are turning to “known quantities” – fuels with established supply chains, bunkering procedures, and safety protocols – prioritising predictability and certainty over perceived risk.

LNG 

In the 2024-2025 Barometer survey, C-suite executives ranked LNG as the most viable fuel over the next decade. The fuel’s widespread availability, mature infrastructure, and a focus on reducing methane slip (unburned methane escapes) are all factors that could underpin its growing appeal. Further, this availability continues to grow, with expanding bunkering hubs from Singapore, now considered one of the world’s leading LNG hubs, to Rotterdam.

With the USA considering easing certain restrictions on LNG companies, as well as reports that Maersk is investing in several LNG-powered vessels, this strong growth looks set to continue. The Shell LNG Outlook 2025 forecasts that demand for LNG will rise by around 60 per cent by 2040, largely driven by economic growth in Asia, emissions reductions in heavy industry and transport, as well as the impact of artificial intelligence. 

Methanol and ammonia

Methanol dropped down the viability list for maritime leaders, although it remained one of the strongest choices for alternative fuels, sitting on the same level as ammonia and behind LNG, HFO with technology, and biofuel in the 2024-2025 Barometer survey. The fuel has attracted increased attention, with major owners/operators including CMA CGM and Seaspan announcing plans to invest in methanol-capable or dual-fuel vessels. 

Yet scaling remains a hurdle. More than 90 per cent of current production is fossil-derived, while the renewable electricity and carbon capture required for green methanol production add significant costs. As Monjasa CEO Anders Østergaard told ICS Leadership Insights: “LNG, ammonia, and methanol are explicitly not more economically viable than traditional fuels, and will likely only be adopted at scale through the introduction of regulations.”

Ammonia faces even stiffer barriers. While it is energy-dense and zero-carbon at the point of use, its toxicity requires stringent handling procedures and new safety protocols. The Barometer survey found that industry leaders are wary of fuels without mature bunkering networks or clear regulatory certainty. 

Crew training is also an important part of the equation. Anglo-Eastern, for example, has invested in ammonia bunkering simulators, although the industry will need to respond to frequent evolution in the skills required, according to Bjorn Hojgaard, CEO at Anglo-Eastern. Speaking to ICS Leadership Insights, he warned: “Alternative fuels bring new operational and maintenance requirements, placing greater emphasis on robust safety management systems. This transition calls for a comprehensive enhancement of maritime workforce competencies.” 

Hydrogen

Hydrogen, which saw a 10 per cent fall in the perception of its viability rating amongst maritime leaders over the last four Barometer surveys, remains constrained by cost, storage, and energy density challenges. It sat below LNG, HFO, biofuel, ammonia, methanol, and hybrid propulsion technology in the 2024-2025 Barometer survey. 

While pilot projects exist, notably in short-sea shipping, C-suite executives showed little confidence in hydrogen as a scalable solution for deep-sea this side of 2040. Its role may ultimately be indirect, feeding into clean fuel production, rather than powering deep-sea fleets directly.

But not all sectors require the same degree of transformation, meaning hydrogen’s uptake could be unevenly spread. According to ICS’s Turning Hydrogen Demand Into Reality: Which Sectors Come First? report, the main driver for hydrogen demand in multiple sectors is the target of abatement of emissions. Making hydrogen infrastructure, and transportation available at scale in various regions, would be key to securing a diversified supply that contributes to global low-carbon energy security. 

The report further stipulates that hydrogen demand could double by 2040, with most of the additional demand coming from industrial sectors where it is easier to uptake, acting as a baseload. The rest would come from new industrial uses, and a small share of the total would come from transport sectors. 

Biofuel and electrification

The 2024-2025 Barometer also revealed a decline in maritime leaders’ view of biofuel as a viable fuel over the next decade, which could be in part due to concerns over predicted feedstock supply limitations and competitive demand from other sectors such as aviation. However, it remained near the top ranking in third place, behind only LNG and HFO. The IEA Renewable Market Report 2024 predicts that bioenergy, including liquid, gaseous, and solid fuels, will account for the vast majority (95%) of renewable fuel growth to 2030.

Electrification is also gaining traction. In China, nearly 500 battery electric ships – mostly ferries and short-haul vessels – are operational as of 2024, contributing to a new-energy fleet of over 1,000 clean-energy vessels nationwide. Electrification of passenger and feeder-river vessels, particularly those linking factories to major export ports, is cutting emissions and fuel costs, while strengthening inland waterways as a backbone for China’s green-shipping transition. 

Ports and infrastructure

Fuel availability now eclipses infrastructure as the bigger concern for investors, according to the industry leaders surveyed. Yet ports remain pivotal. Some, like Barcelona, have invested in methanol storage and bunkering capacity. José Alberto Carbonell, President of the Port Authority of Barcelona, told ICS Leadership Insights: “We have explored building a methanol plant in the port, with the capacity to store 100,000 tonnes of the fuel, and it would represent the second largest investment in our history, after our development of our container terminal.”

Others, including Singapore and Houston, are trialling multi-fuel hubs. But the pace is uneven, and many developing nations risk exclusion from the first wave of alternative-fuel shipping. This geographic imbalance carries strategic implications – trade competitiveness could be reshaped not just by tariffs, but by which ports can service next-generation fleets.

The training bottleneck

As the maritime sector shifts towards greener fuels, the skills needed to support this evolution are changing rapidly. The 2024-2025 Barometer survey introduced “availability of crew and trained personnel” as a new risk category, ranking it seventh overall. 

While the industry leaders expressed high confidence in their ability to manage the transition, mounting evidence suggests complacency could be costly. The 2023/24 Drewry Manning Review reported seafarer shortages at a 17-year high, a shortfall expected to persist through 2028, with the upcoming ICS/BIMCO Seafarer Workforce Report 2026 expected to provide more recent updates to this soon. 

However, momentum is growing around new initiatives that aim to remedy the skills gap. The Maritime Just Transition Task Force (MJTTF), in collaboration with the UN Global Compact, International Chamber of Shipping, International Transport Workers’ Federation, International Maritime Organization, International Labour Organization, and with support from Lloyd’s Register Foundation, recently launched the first interim training frameworks for seafarers on ammonia, methanol and hydrogen-fuelled vessels. 

These frameworks will provide a global reference point for harmonised training standards to help the maritime industry workforce safely adapt to zero and near-zero emission fuels.

Additionally, the IMO’s Sub-Committee on Human Element, Training and Watchkeeping is working on amendments to the Seafarers’ Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping (STCW) Code to reflect new technologies and alternative fuel competencies, which features a gradual rollout. 

A managed transition

The viability of alternative fuels is no longer a purely technical question. It is a balance of risk appetite, regulatory clarity, supply chain realities, and human capital. The decisive factors for the next decade are clear – whether regulators can turn frameworks into bankable certainty, whether ports and fuel producers can match supply to demand, and whether the industry can train a workforce ready to handle volatile, unfamiliar fuels. 

For shipping, the question is no longer which fuels are possible but also which fuels are practical – and how quickly the industry can adapt amid persistent geopolitical uncertainty.

To download the 2024-2025 ICS Maritime Barometer, which is published annually and produces crucial findings after gathering strategic thoughts and views of global maritime leaders, click here or visit www.ics-shipping.org. 

If you are a C-suite executive and would like to be a part of the 2025-2026 survey, which is open until 27th February 2026, please click here.