Hi5 spreads down across global bunker hubs
Hi5 spreads in Rotterdam, Singapore and Fujairah have fallen by around $30-45/mt over the last year, potentially reducing savings for scrubber-equipped ships.
These are Hi5 spreads for delivered bunker fuels and represent the premium of VLSFO over HSFO.
Wide Hi5 spreads increase the economic benefit of using scrubbers that allow ships to burn lower-priced HSFO. Narrow spreads decrease that benefit.
According to ENGINE’s benchmark price data, Rotterdam's Hi5 spread has more than halved from a level of around $90/mt a year ago, to around $45/mt currently.
Singapore and Fujairah’s Hi5 spreads have shrunk by around $30/mt each.
In Rotterdam, VLSFO has fallen by $121/mt since Febuary 2025, outpacing a $73/mt fall in its HSFO price.
Scrubber uptake reached around 42% of all container ships in January, container shipping research firm Alphaliner recently said in a report. That is the highest level ever, but new installations have slowed down compared to previous years.
Alphaliner attributed this slowdown to narrowing Hi5 spreads among other factors like stricter environmental regulations and more alternatively-fuelled vessel orders.
It took just four years from mid-2020 to mid-2024 for container ship scrubber adoption to rise from 20% to 40%, Alphaliner said.
Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) had the largest amount of scrubber-fitted ships by container capacity, with around 4.1 million TEU. This made up 67% of the container capacity on its ships running on conventional fuels, according to Alphaliner data.
Other European carriers like Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd operate about 40% of their conventional capacity fitted with scrubbers.
Among the Asian carriers, Taiwan’s Evergreen had around 94% of its capacity equipped with scrubbers. HMM had around 82% of its container fleet capacity fitted with scrubbers, Alphaliner said.
While some shipping lines like MSC, CMA CGM and Maersk have renewed their fleets with LNG or methanol dual-fuel vessels, others like Evergreen are almost entirely conventional.
By Nachiket Tekawade
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