![\"Total](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/shipping-sized-Pixabay-2025_6224396ef1925c09354a4c7cdd5a43f8.jpg\")
\n Total bunker costs for ships operating in the EU increased this month following the introduction of new EU-ETS rules. Image source: Pixabay <\/p>\n
\n Total bunker costs for ships operating in the EU increased this month following the introduction of new EU-ETS rules. Image source: Pixabay <\/p>\n
Total bunker costs for ships operating in the European Union (EU) increased this month following the introduction of new EU Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) rules, Ship&Bunker wrote on 1 January \u2013 the day the legislation took effect.<\/p>\n
According to Ship&Bunker data, at the end of 2025, owners were paying around \u20ac220 (US$257)\/tonne in EU-ETS compliance costs for very low sulphur oil (VLSFO) burned on intra-EU voyages.<\/p>\n
On 1 January, that cost increased by around 45% to US$319\/tonne.<\/p>\n
For context, the average price of VLSFO in the Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region at the end of 2025 was US$464.50\/tonne.<\/p>\n
As part of a \u201cphasing in\u201d period for the new EU-ETS rules, owners had to pay for 40% of the applicable compliance costs for emissions produced in 2024, increasing to 70% in 2025, the report said.<\/p>\n
From 1 January, owners have had to pay 100% of the compliance cost.<\/p>\n
Other factors also needed to be considered when calculating the compliance cost, Ship&Bunker
\nwrote.<\/p>\n
For example, the per-voyage compliance cost was halved if only one EU port was involved.<\/p>\n
Emissions generated during a calendar year are \u2018paid for\u2019 by purchasing and surrendering EU allowances (EUAs), which must be done by the following September – ie calendar year 2025 submissions are paid in September 2026.<\/p>\n
The fact that cost reduction rules apply to the year the emissions are produced, not the year they are paid, is a cause of confusion, according to the report.<\/p>\n
For example, in September 2026, owners will calculate the compliance cost for emissions produced in 2025, paying 70% of that cost.<\/p>\n
Following the introduction of the new rules, in September 2027 owners will have to pay 100% of the cost of the emissions produced in 2026.<\/p>\n
In addition, this year also saw changes to the \u201cemissions factor\u201d used to calculate how many EUAs\/tonne of bunker fuel burned would need to be surrendered.<\/p>\n
After starting 2025 a little over \u20ac70 (US$82), the cost of an EUA had fallen to \u20ac60 (US$70) at the end of the first quarter of the year and had been rising since, Ship&Bunker wrote.<\/p>\n
According to Ship&Bunker data, a single EUA cost around \u20ac85.02 (US$99) at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n
Launched in 2005, the EU ETS was the world\u2019s first carbon market and among the largest ones globally.<\/p>\n
The system requires companies to pay for their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by monitoring and reporting their emissions on a yearly basis and surrendering enough allowances to fully account for their annual emissions. If these requirements are not met, heavy fines are imposed.<\/p>\n
It covers emissions from electricity and heat generation, industrial manufacturing and the aviation sector which, taken together, account for approximately 40% of total GHG emissions in the EU. It started covering emissions from maritime transport in 2024.<\/p>\n
The system operates in all EU countries and in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Since 2020, has also been linked to the Swiss ETS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Total bunker costs for ships operating in the EU increased this month following the introduction of new EU-ETS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,18694,18693],"class_list":{"0":"post-697798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-oil-and-fats","12":"tag-oils-and-fats-international"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115899551202669387","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}