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Deck Diaries 11: The Data Gap Has a Price. Who Pays It?
By : Capt. Umesh T. | July - 2026
There are weeks when a technical superintendent spends most of the day addressing technology problems.
Then there are weeks when the problem is uncertainty.
The escalating tensions in the Middle East caused VLSFO prices in Singapore to rise from roughly $525 per tonne at the end of February 2026 to $1,100 on 26th March 2026. Questions around regional fuel availability also circulated through the industry. Brokers and suppliers were cautious. Shipowners were cautious.
Nobody seemed entirely sure what the next week would look like, let alone the next month.
For tech superintendents, days became a cycle of calls, spreadsheets, revised estimates, and fresh assumptions. Over the past 4 months, every new market update has raised as many questions as it has answers. The discussion that was earlier centred on securing the best bunker price has become more uncomfortable: deciding whether to bunker now at a premium or risk a market that could become even less predictable tomorrow.
As a ship captain, what strikes me the most is how soon confidence in numbers has disappeared.
When fuel markets move at this pace, all bunkering decisions come back to a simple question: how well do we really understand the fuel position of the vessel sitting on the other side of the world?
And that’s where the data gap carries a cost.
They Thought They Had the Numbers
Even through these challenging times, teams weren't making decisions in the dark.
They had noon reports and consumption spreadsheets from vessels. They referred to voyage plans, weather forecasts, historical fuel curves, and range calculations built from years of operating experience. On paper, there was no information deficit.
And none of those systems had suddenly failed us.
The crews were reporting well by sending accurate data ashore. Their calculations were reasonable. But the market was no longer stable. And at the time of writing this, the Strait of Hormuz has been closed again, a few days after the US and Iran signed a 60-day ceasefire on 17 June 2026. The sea is a fickle mistress, but geopolitics is even more so.
When fuel prices change by the hour and availability becomes part of the risk equation, information ages much faster than mariners are accustomed to.
A noon report tells you how a vessel was performing several hours ago. A spreadsheet shows what fuel consumption looked like on the previous voyage.
Neither necessarily reveals what’s happening right now,and that difference matters when a team is deciding whether to commit hundreds of thousands of dollars to bunkering.
Certainty Is At A Premium
The consequence of recent data gaps was that many bunkering decisions were brought forward.
Under normal market conditions, operators can optimise around price, voyage schedules, and expected consumption. During the Middle East conflict, those variables became far less predictable. The possibility of further price increases, along with questions about regional fuel availability, has shifted the emphasis from optimisation to risk reduction.
For technical superintendents, it implied accepting higher bunker prices than would otherwise be justifiable. Vessels had to take fuel earlier than planned. Some decided to carry larger reserves than their immediate trading requirements advised. The goal was no longer to minimise costs in the short term. They just have to avoid the potentially higher costs of exposure to a rapidly deteriorating market.
We cannot call these decisions wrong or poor. Given the information available to operators, most of them were entirely rational.
What they reveal, however, is the financial impact of blind spots. When operators lack confidence in fuel consumption figures, remaining range, or the current condition of key machinery, they intuitively build bigger safety margins into their decisions.
Those margins reduce risk, but they carry a high cost. For a vessel taking 1,500 tonnes of VLSFO, a price difference of just $100 per tonne represents an additional $150,000 in bunker expenditure.
What I still find myself wondering is whether that premium would look different if we knew more.
Not in hindsight, but at the very moment the decision gets made.
The Value of Knowing More
One of the lessons mariners have been learning (one that the last few months have ruthlessly driven home) is that fuel management is a dynamic process — it involves a series of decisions, and those decisions become constrained when visibility is limited.
When we work in cycles, a vessel reports, shore teams assess the information, and decisions follow. The approach can work reasonably well if fuel prices, market supply, and vessel performance are relatively predictable.
But compliance regulations are revised constantly, and intense geopolitical conditions show that today’s operating environment can change within days or even hours.
If a technical superintendent has access to accurate fuel consumption across the fleet, live range calculations for each vessel, and current engine performance data, decision-making is more efficient. Operators can act on changes as they occur in near real time.
These dynamic decisions are particularly valuable while facing volatile markets. A vessel consuming less fuel than expected may safely defer bunkering at a later port. Another showing signs of increased consumption or performance degradation may justify an earlier purchase despite higher prices. The discussion shifts from "How much contingency do we need?" to "How much contingency is actually justified?”. Voyage planning improves because decisions get made based on what is happening now rather than what was reported yesterday.
Shipping In the Wake of Hormuz (For Now)
By the time this blog is published, the fuel market may look very different again.
The Strait of Hormuz may be fully open, partially restricted, or facing a new round of uncertainty. Prices may stabilise. Supply concerns may ease. Another event somewhere else may take place. Shipping has always adapted to disruption, and it always will.
What we are experiencing is the speed at which those disruptions influence our operations.
For technical superintendents, the challenge is managing data gaps. Every choice involves an intersection of market conditions, vessel performance, fuel availability, and commercial risk. The closer those realities are understood, the fewer assumptions need to fill the gaps.
Knowing how complex decision-making at sea is, I still cannot say whether some operators bought fuel too early. What I do know is that uncertainty carries a cost. They paid it.
That leaves me with a question I suspect many operators are asking themselves today:
What is one bad bunkering decision worth against a year of knowing exactly where every vessel stands?
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