Shipping lines say they are absorbing the cost of the industry's green transition themselves, because shippers and freight forwarders remain unwilling to pay a premium for lower-emission ocean freight.

That was the message from speakers at the Singapore International Bunkering Conference and Exhibition, held yesterday, where operators laid out a blunt commercial reality: the capital going into alternative fuels and lower-emission vessels is landing on carrier balance sheets, not on cargo owners' invoices.

Who is paying for greener ships?

Pacific International Lines (PIL) head of operations and procurement (China) Chia Yujin said shippers in price-sensitive markets were not yet ready to pay for the industry's transition — an admission that, in price-sensitive trades, the green premium remains commercially toxic.

The claim matters because it frames the central tension in decarbonising container shipping. Carriers are committing capital to vessels capable of burning alternative fuels and to emissions-reducing technology, but the market signal from cargo owners — particularly in cost-driven lanes — has not followed. If freight buyers will not pay more, the investment cycle depends on carrier margins, vessel scrapping economics, or future regulation to close the gap.

For forwarders, the implication is direct. Any carrier surcharge or rate structure built around lower-emission services will be hard to pass through to end customers in markets where price decides the booking. For shippers, the message from Singapore is that carriers consider the current arrangement temporary — and that the cost-sharing question is unresolved.

What was not said

Notably absent from the conference comments was any figure quantifying the burden. No speaker cited a dollar amount of investment, a percentage premium shippers had refused, or a specific trade lane where green bookings had collapsed. That silence is itself informative: the argument is being made qualitatively, ahead of what carriers may later present as evidence for new charges.

Also unstated was how much of the green investment would have occurred anyway under fleet-replacement cycles. Newbuilds ordered today would meet tighter efficiency standards regardless of environmental ambition, so the share of spending attributable purely to the transition — the portion carriers say they alone are shouldering — remains undefined.

The timing, however, is not incidental. The debate over who pays comes as the industry faces tightening emissions rules from the International Maritime Organization, with fuel strategies and compliance costs increasingly dividing carriers with deep pockets from those in price-sensitive segments. PIL, a Southeast Asian operator focused heavily on intra-Asian and price-competitive trades, sits squarely in the second camp — which makes Chia's framing unsurprising but also strategically significant.

The commercial standoff ahead

The standoff carriers described is unlikely to hold indefinitely. Either freight buyers begin accepting differentiated pricing for lower-emission services, or carriers push the cost through regulation — carbon levies, fuel standards, or compliance schemes that leave shippers no choice but to pay.

The conference signal suggests carriers prefer the second route: if voluntary green premiums are dead in price-sensitive markets, mandatory mechanisms become the only reliable path to cost recovery. Expect that argument to sharpen as IMO measures approach implementation.