Strategic Shifts

The closing weeks of 2025 saw Hong Kong reiterating the territory’s intentions of becoming a major green bunkering hub in the immediate term. Hong Kong Maritime Week, with IBIA’s own Convention as part of it, in late November had the transition to green fuels and the ability of HK to provide and incentivise them on a rapidly growing basis as one of its cornerstones.

Giving the flagship address, HK’s Secretary for Transport and Logistics, Mable Chan, said: “We are establishing Hong Kong into a green fuel bunkering and trading hub to create the bankable assets that capital seeks. Pioneering investments carry higher costs, and the full benefit of green investments may not be realised due to, for example, the low availability of green fuels. Our Action Plan on Green Maritime Fuel Bunkering, with its five core strengths and strategies and 10 concrete actions, provides exactly a definitive roadmap to propel the green fuel bunkering and trading development in Hong Kong. Leveraging our unparalleled access to the Chinese Mainland’s green fuel production, we are already delivering tangible, quick results from setting the national record for the largest single delivery of biodiesel at a Chinese port, to successfully transition into regularised LNG bunkering in Hong Kong waters. In a way, we are starting late but catching up fast.”

“Our focus now is on the next generation of fuels. We are pioneering the future with methanol, ammonia, and hydrogen. To accelerate this, we secured a duty exemption for methanol through legislation and will commence feasibility studies for ammonia and hydrogen bunkering soon this year. We recognise the first-mover disadvantage of high initial costs, and that is precisely why we launched the Green Maritime Fuel Bunkering Incentive Scheme in order to help our partners to de-risk and reward pioneering companies. Like different industries, our shipping partners also like recognition and rewards. Though it may be small to the big businesses, it really serves as a symbolism and demonstration of how much care and attention we show to the industry.”

“Next year, we will introduce legislation for a half-rate profits tax concession for the eligible commodity traders including those who trade in green maritime fuels. Coupled with our ongoing matchmaking events that connect Chinese Mainland enterprises with global end-users, we are not just building a fuel hub; we are creating the entire landscape and liquid marketplace required to finance and sustain the global fleet’s transition.”

She expanded on this in her welcoming address to IBIA as well, adding: “We make clear that Hong Kong will adopt a multi-fuel strategy, with the most commonly used or explored fuels such as LNG, biodiesel, methanol, ammonia and hydrogen being the fuels of choice. We then set out to build up a supply chain of such fuels in Hong Kong, from locating sources of green fuels in the proximity, that is the Chinese Mainland, which is conveniently right next to us and have been the largest supplier of such fuels by far, to developing storage facilities and providing bunkering infrastructure in Hong Kong. We are small, but I think we will be targeted and focused in providing, putting and rolling out storage facilities, infrastructure support, so as to allow Hong Kong to provide a miniature of the ecosystem that is advocated under the IBIA. Crucially, this strategy is already backed by concrete regulatory actions.”

During the course of HKMW, the SAR’s government also announced the establishment of the “Green Maritime Fuel Development Communication Platform” under the Transport and Logistics Bureau, a collaboration and communication platform to ease the development of green bunkering supply chain by linking various industry stakeholders. The launch of such a platform was one of the actions laid out in the territory’s green bunkering action plan set out the year before. At launch, the platform is being shared by 25 different organisations, including bunker suppliers Banle Energy and Chimbusco Pan Nation, shipping lines, terminal operators and energy companies, alongside Hong Kong’s main industry bodies.

The government says the platform will enable stakeholders to express their opinions on how green bunkering is developing in the SAR, simplify business discussion and co-operation, and will be open to any interested parties doing business in Hong Kong – and it will be backed up by government-organised networking events and other in-person support to build the territory’s green fuel offerings as quickly and viably as possible.