infrastructure build-out directly supports upcoming compliance milestones. Aggregation thus helps transform scattered demand into a coordinated signal that underpins infrastructure scale-up in line with global regulatory deadlines. Overcoming market fragmentation Equally critical is managing market fragmentation among suppliers. The emerging clean fuel landscape features a mix of large incumbents, such as oil majors moving into methanol and ammonia and smaller innovators piloting synthetic fuel plants at modest scale. This diversity creates coordination challenges: smaller producers often lack the capacity to meet the needs of large global carriers, while larger producers concentrate on major hubs, leaving gaps for regional operators. The patchwork of production pathways, certification regimes and delivery scales complicates buyers’ ability to secure uniform offtake structures. The ideal for a company like us, at our current scale, would be to sell our technology to a methanol offtaker, because what do you do with these small, not necessarily useful volumes of methanol? – Jonny Lowndes, Head of Commercialization, Aircela Aggregated demand models offer a solution by bundling multiple suppliers into joint procurement or platform structures, enabling buyers to access a diversified portfolio of fuels through a single channel. The Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) notes that collaborative procurement initiatives, such as Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA) and multi-supplier green corridor projects, are increasingly bridging small and large producers, giving shipowners confidence in resilient supply while ensuring smaller suppliers can participate in scaling-up.39 Crucially, as and when the IMO NZF moves towards its 2030 and 2040 checkpoints, diversified, aggregated supplier models provide flexibility: if one producer or technology pathway underperforms, others can step in to meet regulatory requirements. This makes supplier fragmentation not just manageable but a potential source of resilience when coordinated through aggregated demand platforms. Smart solution: book-and-claim Aggregation alone cannot fully overcome the friction of fragmented supply and uneven access to infrastructure. To unlock the next level of scale, policy-enabled mechanisms such as book-and-claim systems are emerging as a complementary solution – creating traceable, tradable certificates that allow fuel use and emissions reductions to be decoupled from physical delivery. Book-and-claim is not new: it has been widely used in electricity (e.g. renewable energy certificates), aviation (e.g. sustainable aviation fuel credit systems) and corporate decarbonization markets. In shipping, it has been tested by initiatives such as ZEMBA and port-led pilots in Singapore and Rotterdam, which are exploring traceable certificates linked to fuel lifecycle emissions.40 What is new is the robust and growing support for the idea from low-carbon suppliers themselves. As producers of e-methanol, e-ammonia and synthetic fuels struggle to reach diverse buyer segments across multiple geographies, they increasingly view book-and-claim as a commercial enabler rather than a mere accounting tool. This approach enables suppliers to access a broader and more diverse pool of buyers, including those from both within and outside the maritime sector. It removes the constraint of matching physical fuel delivery to immediate operational needs, allowing even non- maritime buyers, who are interested exclusively in the environmental benefits of the fuel, such as emissions offsets, to participate in the market. Book-and-claim turns non-fuel purchasers into financial supporters of early volumes. Talissa Mathieu, Business Development Manager, StormFisher Hydrogen Turning Challenge into Opportunity: Supplier Voices from Heavy-Emitting Sectors 19

Turning Challenge into Opportunity 2025