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Falling fuel prices have offset the costs imposed by stricter marine fuel sulphur content regulations, according to UK firm Drewry Shipping Consultants.

Low-sulphur marine regulations were introduced for ships operating in Northern Europe, Canada and the United States on January 1, 2015, when the earlier fuel sulphur content cap of 1 percent was reduced to 0.1 percent. Drewry states in its Container Insight publication that despite warnings that bunker surcharges and freight rates would need to be introduced to help meet the higher costs of cleaner fuel, "little of this has actually happened since January".

Drewry estimates that the extra costs incurred from using low-sulphur marine gas oil (MGO) would have been "about US$29/teu from North Europe to US East Coast, US$49/teu from North Europe to US Gulf and US$21/teu from North Europe to Asia". However, these costs appear to have been offset by falling fuel prices.

According to Drewry, roughly half of the shipping lines running from Northern Europe to the United States have charged a low-sulphur surcharge averaging around $55/teu, with the other half including this expense in the base rate. A similar proportion of shipping lines charged a surcharge between Northern Europe and Asia, at an average of roughly $20/teu. Drewry also reports that some shipping lines have declined to pay the extra costs, pointing to the fact that the cost of standard intermediate fuel oil (IFO) has decreased over the period.

Marine fuel prices have fallen sharply since June 2014, largely offsetting new low-sulphur surcharges. Data from the Bunker Index (BIX) show that the average global bunker price on June 30, 2014, was $797.02 per tonne, and had fallen below $500 per tonne by January 13, 2015. The BIX reached a low of $477.44 per tonne on January 28, 2015.

In most cases these reductions in fuel prices have been enough to offset the low-sulphur fuel surcharges averaging around $20/teu from between Northern Europe and Asia, and greatly reduce the impact of higher surcharges for ships traversing the North Atlantic.

Drewry expects the costs of fuel surcharges to hit ship operators in the future, stating that "the real cost will be seen once fuel prices start rising again, as will inevitably happen".