A bunker price can be precise to the last dollar per tonne and still not tell a buyer what the fuel ultimately costs. The reason is straightforward: the quoted price captures the economics of the deal at the moment it is fixed, but it does not capture everything that happens afterwards. Once delivery begins, the commercial picture starts to depend on the energy and quantity actually delivered, service performance, quality issues and, in some cases, the claims that follow when things do not go as planned.

For this analysis, we used Fuelsure's aggregated True Cost data across selected bunker market hubs. True Cost converts those execution effects into a common dollar-per-tonne measure so they can be compared directly with the quoted bunker price. In simplified terms, True Cost is the quoted price plus quantity and energy effects, quality effects and service effects; the difference between the quoted price and True Cost is referred to here as the execution premium. The analysis looks at rolling 12-month performance and compares the latest six months with the preceding six months, while supplier identities are excluded. Claims are analysed separately to examine what happens at the more severe end of the risk distribution.

Looking through the numbers, four top-level takeaways stand out: Execution costs differ by market. Over the latest 12 months, the execution premium was $12.80 in New York, $9.22/mt in $3.72/mt in Singapore and $5.50/mt in Panama Canal and. The cost of execution is clearly not the same everywhere…

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