Major shipping company AP Moller-Maersk announced its interim reports for April-June 2025 on Aug 7, reporting that its bunker procurement fell 4.7% year-on-year to 2.72 million mt. In contrast, container loaded volumes rose 3.9% year-on-year to 3.23 million FFE (forty-foot container equivalents), indicating that improved vessel fuel efficiency had led to a net reduction in bunker consumption.

Market sources noted that declines in bunker fuel procurement driven by fuel efficiency improvements were being seen across many regions, not limited to a single shipping company. Even at the Singapore port, the world's largest bunker sales hub, monthly data from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) showed that total bunker fuel oil sales in January-June 2025 were down 214,960 mt from the same period last year, underscoring a weakening in bunker demand.

Meanwhile, global container demand in April-June 2025 was currently estimated to have grown by 3-5% from a year earlier, defying earlier predictions of a collapse in global trade following the U.S. government's April announcement of tariff hikes on various countries. Robust import growth into Europe, Latin America, West-Central Asia, and Africa offset declines in North American imports. However, the outlook for container demand in the second half of 2025 remains uncertain, with full-year global container demand growth expected to range between 2% and 4%.