Marine Fuels
Explore the fuel price and emissions intensity of marine fuel. This page does not include diesel-electric hybridization or other marine power sources. Well-to-wake emissions are not included because of the wide variety of vessels that may be using these fuels.
Note: These results are highly context dependent and may not represent the optimal values for each fuel pathway. We recommend caution, and review of other sources, before making comparisons between the cases reported in the table above.
Key Assumptions
The data and estimates presented here are based on the following key assumptions:
- Heavy Fuel Oil Prices: The prices for heavy fuel oil are based on the U.S. Energy Information Administration's Monthly Energy Review (EIA, 2023).
- Fischer Tropsch (FT) and Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids (HEFA) Pathways: For FT and HEFA pathways, the estimates for marine biofuel prices and process performance used in Research & Development Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Technologies (R&D GREET) for emissions intensities are based on Tan et al. (Tan et al., 2021) for FT and HEFA. Well-to-wake emissions estimates are not shown because of the wide range of potential vessel fuel economies.
- Hydrothermal Liquefaction (HTL) Pathway: For the HTL pathway, the price is based on Snowden-Swan et al. (Snowden-Swan et al., 2020).
- Conventional Heavy Fuel Oil: The conventional heavy fuel oil price is from (EIA, 2024) (data from January to March 2022).
- Conventional Marine Diesel: Conventional marine diesel oil is a combination of heavy fuel oil and marine gas oil. Conventional heavy fuel oil data are shown; conventional marine gas oil data were not found.
- Plant characteristics are based on the process designs of (Dutta et al., 2021), (Dutta et al., 2023), (Tao et al., 2017), (Snowden-Swan et al., 2020), and (Snowden-Swan et al., 2017).
To see additional information, place your mouse cursor over a value in the table.
Definitions
For detailed definitions, see:
References
The following references are specific to this page; for all references in this ATB, see References.
EIA. “Monthly Energy Review, Table 9.5,” 2023. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/?tbl=T09.05.
Tan, Eric C. D., Troy R. Hawkins, Uisung Lee, Ling Tao, Pimphan A. Meyer, Michael Wang, and Tom Thompson. “Biofuel Options for Marine Applications: Technoeconomic and Life-Cycle Analyses.” Environmental Science & Technology 55, no. 11 (June 1, 2021): 7561–70. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.0c06141.
Snowden-Swan, Lesley, Justin Billing, Michael Thorson, Andy Schmidt, Miki Santosa, Susanne Jones, and Richard Hallen. “Wet Waste Hydrothermal Liquefaction and Biocrude Upgrading to Hydrocarbon Fuels: 2019 State of Technology.” Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, April 2020. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1617028/.
EIA. “Monthly Energy Review, Table 9.5,” 2024. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/?tbl=T09.05.
Dutta, Abhijit, Calvin Mukarakate, Kristiina Iisa, Huamin Wang, Michael Talmadge, Daniel Santosa, Kylee Harris, et al. “Ex Situ Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis of Lignocellulosic Biomass to Hydrocarbon Fuels: 2020 State of Technology.” National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States), June 1, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2172/1805204.
Dutta, Abhijit, Hao Cai, Michael S. Talmadge, Calvin Mukarakate, Kristiina Iisa, Huamin Wang, Daniel M. Santosa, et al. “Model Quantification of the Effect of Coproducts and Refinery Co-Hydrotreating on the Economics and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of a Conceptual Biomass Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis Process.” Chemical Engineering Journal 451 (2023): 138485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2022.138485.
Tao, Ling, Anelia Milbrandt, Yanan Zhang, and Wei-Cheng Wang. “Techno-Economic and Resource Analysis of Hydroprocessed Renewable Jet Fuel.” Biotechnology for Biofuels 10, no. 1 (November 9, 2017): 261. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13068-017-0945-3.
Snowden-Swan, Lesley J., Yunhua Zhu, Mark D. Bearden, Timothy E. Seiple, Susanne B. Jones, Andrew J. Schmidt, Justin M. Billing, et al. “Conceptual Biorefinery Design and Research Targeted for 2022: Hydrothermal Liquefacation Processing of Wet Waste to Fuels.” Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States), December 28, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2172/1415710.