Global Energy Trading, Golden Island, and PetroChina have been selected by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) to supply methanol as marine fuel in the Southeast Asian port, the world’s top bunkering hub.
“This marks an important step towards establishing methanol bunkering at scale and driving Singapore’s ambition to be a sustainable multi-fuel bunkering hub,” the MPA stated in a release.
The licences will be valid for a five-year period, from January 1 2026, to the end of 2030.
Singapore has spent the past year turning alternative fuel ambition into operating rules, shipyard contracts, and measurable bunker volumes. The world’s largest bunker hub closed 2024 with record sales of 54.92m tonnes, and 2025 has so far kept pace, boosted by longer Red Sea diversions and shipowners’ demand for reliability through the strait. But beneath the headline tonnage, the mix is shifting. Alternative fuels cleared the million-tonne mark for the first time in 2024, and methanol has moved from pilot runs to a regulated line of business. LNG continues to hold its ground, and ammonia is emerging from memorandum to hardware order.
The MPA reported that alternative fuel bunker sales in 2024 hit 1.34m tonnes—double the prior year—with about 880,000 tonnes of bio-blends and more than 460,000 tonnes of LNG. Methanol volumes remain small, but 2025 is the year when Singapore began putting them on a structured footing. In March, MPA launched Technical Reference TR129, a national standard for methanol bunkering, and companion standards for methanol bunker tankers. Within weeks, the authority opened applications for methanol supply licences. A total of 13 companies applied, with the three winners announced today.
Singapore aims to supply more than 1m tonnes of low-carbon methanol a year by 2030. That target now looks more realistic as bunker suppliers line up the necessary hardware. Trafigura-backed TFG Marine has chartered four methanol-capable bunker barges from Consort Bunkers, each around 6,500 dwt with mass flow meters. Fratelli Cosulich has also just introduced a methanol dual-fuel bunker barge into Singapore waters.
But the city-state’s multi-fuel agenda doesn’t stop with methanol and LNG. Ammonia is now firmly on the radar. In May, Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) and Itochu signed a deal with Singapore’s authorities to conduct the world’s first ship-to-ship ammonia bunkering demonstration. The project is part of Singapore’s wider effort to trial ammonia as a marine fuel in the port by 2025. Just weeks later, Itochu went a step further, ordering the world’s first purpose-built ammonia bunkering vessel from Murakami Hide Shipbuilding. The 3,500 cu m ship is designed to deliver both low- and zero-carbon ammonia as a marine fuel. Delivery is expected in late 2026, positioning Singapore to host commercial ammonia bunkering in the second half of the decade.
