Most landed cost models still treat bunker fuel like a rounding error, or at best a temporary spike that reverts once things calm down. Neither is true. Fuel is currently one of the fastest moving, least predictable lines in your freight cost stack, and the events of the past two weeks make clear it isn't going back to where it started anytime soon.
What actually happened
The story starts in late February, when the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to commercial shipping. VLSFO jumped from roughly $518 a ton in February to $901 by March, a 74 percent move in a matter of weeks. The disruption didn't hit every region the same way either. Asian bunker hubs are more exposed to Gulf supply than European ones, and by mid-March the Singapore to Rotterdam price gap had blown out to a record $362 a ton, more than double anything seen since 2019.
That wasn't evenly felt across the fleet either. Fed research modeling a typical China to US West Coast container move found fuel costs on the newest, largest ships rose from about $98 to $171 per container, while the oldest and smallest vessels saw costs climb from $360 to $626. On some estimates, fuel alone came to represent 12 to 28 percent of pre-shock freight rates. That is not noise. That is a structural shift in what it costs to move a box, and it landed hardest on exactly the carriers and lanes importers had the least visibility into.
Where prices sit
Prices eased off that March peak, but they never gave it back. Through August, global VLSFO held in the $830 to $875 a ton range across the major hubs, Singapore, Rotterdam, Houston, Fujairah, with Brent hovering around $90 to $92 a barrel on restricted Gulf supply, strained refining capacity, and depleted inventories. That was the "new normal" importers had started budgeting around. Then, this week, Brent pushed to nearly $100 a barrel, a six week high, on fresh reports of strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure. The Strait of Hormuz has now been closed for over six months. War risk insurance is running roughly 40 times normal levels, and daily transits are down to a fraction of baseline. Prediction markets tied to the strait's status put the odds of meaningful reopening at under 20 percent by January. This isn't a spike anymore. It's a floor, and the floor just moved higher again.
The gap between the quote and the invoice
We're seeing this hit importers as a surprise every time, not because the data isn't available, but because the planning process hasn't caught up to the new reality. Ocean freight rates get locked at quote time. BAF surcharges get calculated separately, later, off whatever fuel is doing that week. In many cases the underlying budget assumption is some version of "it'll ease by next quarter," even though nothing in the current data supports that. By the time a shipment actually moves, the surcharge has often reset well above what was originally quoted, and finance is left asking why landed cost came in over budget on a shipment that looked fine on paper.
Who's actually exposed
The exposure here isn't evenly distributed, and that's worth understanding before you assume this is someone else's problem. Importers moving cargo on long haul Asia to US lanes, and anyone booking spot capacity with carriers running older or smaller tonnage, are absorbing significantly bigger swings than shippers on fixed annual contracts with fuel pass through caps already negotiated in. Not every importer is exposed the same way. The ones who locked in contract structure ahead of this are managing it. The ones still booking spot against last quarter's fuel assumptions are the ones getting the invoice shock.
Stop planning for reversion
The practical shift importers need to make is simple to state and harder to do. Stop modeling bunker fuel as transitory. Build Q4 and 2027 cost forecasts around fuel staying elevated, with real upside risk baked in, not a return to pre-crisis pricing as the base case. That means rebuilding your BAF assumptions quarterly instead of annually, understanding which of your carriers and lanes carry the most fuel exposure, and pricing that risk into contracts before it shows up as a surprise on an invoice you already committed to.
The importers treating this as a temporary disruption are going to keep getting caught flat footed every time crude moves. The ones who accept that elevated, volatile fuel costs are the operating environment for the foreseeable future are the ones who will actually protect their margins through it.