Rotterdam B30 premium narrows as biofuel blend falls faster than VLSFO

Rotterdam’s B30 biofuel blend posted a notable weekly fall last week, narrowing the gap with conventional very low sulphur fuel oil even as feedstock costs showed upward pressure, a market note published on 8 November 2026 reported.

Sources said the ARA Rotterdam B30-VLSFO (POMEME) price fell by $133 per tonne over the seven days to that report, a steeper decline than the $77 per tonne drop recorded for conventional VLSFO in the same period.

The relative moves reduced the premium that B30 commanded over conventional VLSFO by $56 per tonne, leaving the premium at about $40 per tonne, the item recorded.

The price convergence occurred despite indications that feedstock costs had risen, the report added, highlighting a divergence between raw-material pressure and finished-bunker pricing in Rotterdam during the week.

Prima Markets’ ARA UCOME was referenced in the report, indicating market-data providers were cited in the snapshot, though the note did not expand further on individual feedstock quotations.

Weekly movements

The weekly change underlined a sharper correction in the B30 biofuel component than in conventional marine distillate, according to the figures cited. The differential contraction to $40 per tonne was the arithmetic result of the larger fall in the B30 line compared with VLSFO over the reporting interval.

Market signals

The report drew attention to the apparent incongruity between higher feedstock costs and weaker bunker prices for the B30 blend, a point presented without additional explanatory detail. The snapshot thus left the market picture in Rotterdam as one in which finished-bunker prices did not move in lockstep with upstream cost signals over the single week covered.

reports presented these movements as a concise market snapshot for the ARA Rotterdam market on 8 November 2026. The published figures set out the weekly changes, the narrowed premium and the puzzling backdrop of rising feedstock indicators cited by market sources.

The report’s emphasis on the numerical shifts gives a clear, if compact, account of the price changes for bunker buyers and observers tracking biofuel blends versus conventional bunkers in northern Europe. The B30-VLSFO label (POMEME) and the conventional VLSFO line were the two price series compared in the snapshot.

Against a short-term weekly timescale, the figures underline how premiums can compress rapidly when blended-fuel lines correct more sharply than their conventional counterparts. The note did not offer conjecture on whether the moves represented a transient rebalancing or a longer-term shift in demand and supply factors.

For market participants who follow ARA-region bunker pricing, the item supplied a succinct set of numbers to update price screens: a $133/mt fall for B30-VLSFO, a $77/mt fall for conventional VLSFO, and a resulting premium of about $40/mt in Rotterdam as of the publication date.

The snapshot closed with the basic data points rather than an extended analysis, leaving readers to interpret the relationship between feedstock cost signals and the behaviour of finished-bunker prices in Rotterdam over the reported week.