There’s a lot of talk right now about Suez “normalising” in 2026. From where we sit, that’s not quite the right word although traffic through the canal is clearly starting to come back into commercial decision-making.
For the last two years, most owners didn’t really have a choice. Red Sea risk was too high, insurance too uncertain, and schedules were already under enough pressure. Going around Africa was inefficient, but predictable. Ships burned more fuel, lifted more bunkers, and accepted the ETS bill as part of the equation.
That setup has started to loosen.
Since the second half of 2025, incidents in the Red Sea have dropped off materially. It’s not risk-free but it’s no longer a blanket “no-go” area for every trade. That alone changes behavior. We’ve already seen operators quietly testing the waters. Maersk’s late-December transit wasn’t a headline exercise; it was a practical one. The Suez Canal Authority talking to liners about returns is just the formal side catching up with what’s already being discussed operationally.
From a bunker point of view, the implications are pretty straightforward.
The extra fuel demand created by the Africa diversions doesn’t disappear overnight, but it does start to fade. Early estimates during the crisis put the uplift at around 2% of global demand. Even giving half of that back is enough to move the needle in certain ports.
The biggest pressure will be felt where container ships have been lifting heavy stems by default. Singapore and Rotterdam fall into that category, along with several African locations that saw volumes jump simply because ships had to pass. Those markets are unlikely to collapse, but tighter supply conditions should ease if routes shorten.
On the other side, the Med has been the quiet loser of the last two years. If Suez becomes usable again, even on a selective basis, Med ports re-enter fuel planning. That’s where we’d expect to see volume recovery first.
For owners, the bigger change is not where bunkers are lifted, but how stems are planned. When voyages get shorter, over-lifting gets expensive fast. ETS exposure also improves, which makes route and fuel decisions less blunt than they’ve been.
Bottom line: Suez doesn’t need to be “safe” to change bunker demand. It just needs to be safe enough for some operators, on some trades, some of the time.
For owners actively reviewing routing assumptions for 2026, these questions are no longer theoretical. Our experts at Glander International Bunkering are available to discuss how changing routes and bunker demand patterns affect fuel planning in the Middle East and beyond.
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