Nine months after the Netherlands became the first country to impose a binding decarbonisation obligation on marine fuel suppliers rather than on the ships they serve, Spain has followed with Royal Decree 611/2026. The market data from Rotterdam shows what other ports should expect if the mechanism keeps spreading unevenly, according to PortXchange, the port emissions data specialist.
Since Dutch rules took effect on 1 January 2026, requiring fuel suppliers to cut the greenhouse gas intensity of bunker fuel sold in the Netherlands, Rotterdam's bunker sales have fallen sharply, dropping 648,399 tonnes in the first quarter of the year to their lowest level since 2009.
Belgium has delayed introducing an equivalent rule and Germany has so far excluded maritime fuel from its own transposition, so the volume that left Rotterdam has moved to ports with no equivalent obligation rather than being decarbonised. By September, Rotterdam's compliance-driven price premium over its nearest competitor had widened to $20-25 per tonne.
Spain's Royal Decree 611/2026 applies the same principle, a binding obligation on fuel suppliers rather than vessel operators, but scopes it to domestic cabotage shipping, with a greenhouse gas intensity reduction curve rising from 6.5% in 2027 to 33% in 2040. Spanish ports will also be required to report annually on the fuel and electricity they supply, categorised by type.
The timing is pointed. The IMO's own attempt at a single global mechanism, the Net-Zero Framework approved in principle in April 2025, failed to secure adoption at an extraordinary session in October 2025 on a 57-49 vote.
The question returns to the table this winter: an intersessional working group meets on 23-27 November 2026, immediately followed by MEPC 85 and the resumed extraordinary session from 30 November to 4 December, where the adoption vote is expected to be revisited. PortXchange argues the EU's national rollout is, in effect, a live pilot of the fragmentation risk IMO member states are trying to avoid.
"Netherlands played it straight. Belgium delayed. Germany opted out. And the volume did exactly what volume does when the rules aren't the same next door: it moved. Spain's next. The real question is who else is willing to go first without checking whether anyone's coming with them," said Sjoerd de Jager, Managing Director and Co-Founder of PortXchange.
PortXchange's EmissionInsider and Port Emission Reporter give ports and operators visibility into bunker volumes, supplier jurisdictions and Scope 3 emissions exposure across multiple markets, allowing shifts of this kind to be identified as they form rather than reconciled after the fact in quarterly trade data.
Sjoerd de Jager concludes, "This is bigger than one decree. Two governments have now shown what happens when the transition isn't coordinated: the tonnes move, the emissions don't. The industry doesn't need another debate about who regulates first. It needs ports, suppliers and regulators acting together before December, not after. That's not a policy preference. It's a survival strategy."
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