A new report highlights the critical role of the Asia Pacific region as a proving ground for e-fuels but notes that maritime demand for such fuels is currently not high enough to mobilise production at the scale needed to support decarbonisation.
“The ships are ready. The net-zero technology is ready. The fuels are still missing,” said Daniel Bischofberger, chief executive officer at Accelleron, which authored the report.
“Our customers are preparing ships to run on e-ammonia and e-methanol, and there is broad agreement that green hydrogen-based e-fuels will be essential for reaching net zero. Even with delays to global net-zero regulation, progress is visible,” he added.
The report identifies the APAC region as hosting some of the world’s most extensive renewable energy and industrial resources to stimulate green hydrogen and e-fuel production.
It also notes how several countries in the region are already developing “book and claim” systems to overcome early gaps in e-fuel distribution infrastructure. Smaller-scale, modular e-fuel production models are emerging that enable incremental buildout and directly accelerate early supply, while government incentives support cost reduction across the e-fuel value chain.
However, despite this progress, maritime demand for e-fuels is currently not high enough to mobilise production at the scale required to decarbonise the sector.
The report identifies five carbon neutral fuel ‘deadlocks’ that are impacting the APAC region and highlights lessons the global industry can take from developments in the region.
The Asia Pacific market has shown that if national governments and industry formalise cross-sector programmes that link port development, green hydrogen and e-fuel production clusters, industrial offtakers, and maritime demand, early ecosystems can progress in advance of global regulatory alignment.
National energy agencies and port authorities can accelerate progress by harmonising cross-sector hydrogen and e-fuel strategies, certification, storage, handling, and bunkering development with neighbouring countries, strengthening regional supply and demand flows.
Governments, ports, and industry can use existing high-traffic trade corridors, like the Australia-Singapore-China iron route, as the backbone for early e-fuel deployment.
The APAC market reveals that smaller scale, modular production concepts can build out incrementally to supply cross-sector offtake, accelerating early market formation.
Finally, the report points out that demand-side incentives for e-fuels are “virtually absent across the Asia Pacific region”, signalling a clear expectation that these must come from global maritime regulation.
“Across Asia Pacific, different approaches to early e-fuel development are emerging, offering evidence of how e-fuel networks can develop in practice and laying the foundations for future scale-up,” said Allan-Qingzhou Wang, chairman of Accelleron China.
