Pool balance
— — add vessels and calculate to see whether this pool is feasible.
Feasibility checks
Calculate to check this pool against Art. 21.
Pool scenario
Applies to every vessel. Vessels in one pool necessarily share a compliance year, and a per-vessel carbon price or exchange rate in a single scenario would make the vessels' figures incomparable.
Target GHG intensity for 2026: 89.3368 gCO2eq/MJ. Fuel selection, biofuel and bioLNG properties, engine types and wind assist are per vessel — they live in each vessel's own settings, not here.
Fuel prices
Vessels (0)
Balance shown is the adjusted compliance balance — what Art. 21 pools.
No vessels yet. A pool needs at least two ships (Art. 21(1)).
About the FuelEU pooling calculator
FuelEU pooling (Article 21 of the FuelEU Maritime Regulation) lets ships combine their compliance balances for a reporting period, so that a surplus on one ship covers a deficit on another. A pool is valid when the combined balance is not negative; within that, the ships agree among themselves how the surplus is shared.
This calculator checks whether a proposed pool meets the Article 21 conditions, shows each vessel's adjusted balance and penalty exposure, and, when the pool falls short, ranks what closing the shortfall would cost: fuel swaps on your own vessels, surplus bought in from outside the pool, or leaving a vessel out. Vessels can be entered with full voyage data or with just the figures from your verifier, in the same pool.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I need full voyage data for every vessel in the pool?
- No. Each vessel can be entered in one of two ways, and a pool can mix them. A detailed vessel takes voyages and fuel consumption, exactly as the single-vessel calculator does, and its balance is calculated. A balance-only vessel takes the figures your verifier or the FuelEU database already gives you: the adjusted compliance balance and, for a vessel in deficit, its attained GHG intensity. Balance-only is quicker; detailed lets the tool price a fuel swap on that vessel, which it cannot do without the fuel mix.
- Which balance does the pool use?
- The adjusted compliance balance, not the raw one. Under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2027 Art. 26(1)(b), the balance that is pooled is the reporting period's balance plus any surplus banked in earlier periods, minus any repayment of last period's borrowing (which already carries the 1.1 multiplier). For a detailed vessel you enter those two adjustments and the tool applies them; for a balance-only vessel the figure you type in should already include them, as it does when your verifier records it by 31 March.
- How does the tool decide whether a pool is valid?
- It checks three conditions, and reports each one separately: at least two ships (Art. 21(1)); every ship eligible to pool, meaning it holds a valid FuelEU document of compliance (Art. 21(5)) and is not borrowing in the same period (Art. 21(7)); and a pooled balance that is zero or positive (Art. 21(4)). The Regulation says "positive", but the Commission-hosted ESSF methodology report and the major class societies read it as non-negative, and the tool follows that reading. Art. 21(4) also restricts how surplus is allocated — no deficit ship may end worse off, no surplus ship may end in deficit — but whenever the pooled balance is non-negative such an allocation always exists, so those rules only matter once an allocation is actually chosen.
- Why does a balance-only vessel in deficit need its GHG intensity?
- Because the FuelEU penalty is priced per vessel. Annex IV Part B divides by the ship's own attained GHG intensity, so the same tonne of deficit costs a different amount on different ships — a cleaner ship pays more per tonne. On top of that, Art. 23(2) multiplies the penalty by 1 + (n − 1)/10 for a ship in its nth consecutive year of penalties, which the tool applies from the per-vessel penalty history you enter. Without the GHG intensity, the vessel can still be pooled, but its deficit cannot be priced.
- Does the tool allocate surplus between vessels?
- No. It checks whether a pool can work and prices the ways to make it work; it does not decide who gives how much surplus to whom. For a fleet under one owner the allocation does not change the total cost, since the penalty is linear and every valid allocation clears the same deficits. Between companies, how pooled surplus is split and paid for is a private agreement the Regulation leaves open, and that negotiation is outside what this tool models.
- What does the merit order show when a pool is short?
- The cheapest way to cover the shortfall, built from two kinds of option kept deliberately apart. Divisible options can be taken in part and stacked cheapest first: a fuel swap on any detailed vessel (priced at its net fuel cost plus the change in EU ETS cost, and capped by how much of the displaced fuel the vessel actually burns), and buying surplus from outside the pool at the pool price you set. Whole-vessel options cannot be part-taken: leaving a deficit vessel out of the pool, where it then pays the penalty on its entire deficit rather than just the shortfall, or leaving it out to borrow instead, where it is eligible. These are shown alongside the stack, not in it, so you can compare them.
- What does the merit order not do?
- It does not pick which vessels to leave out — with several deficit vessels that is a combinatorial choice, and the tool shows each option for you to weigh rather than choosing for you. It does not put a price on borrowing, because the cost falls on next period's balance and the tool models one period only. A fuel swap displaces one fuel per vessel and does not cascade into a second. And the pool price is your assumption: it starts from a published market index, but the Regulation sets no price for pooled surplus, and the price you can actually get depends on who is selling.
- Can I use these results for my FuelEU filing?
- No — this is a planning tool, for budgeting and for deciding which pool to join or form. A real pool is finalised in the FuelEU database against verifier-confirmed balances, on a fixed calendar: the company reports by 31 January, the verifier records each ship's balance by 31 March, and the pool's composition and allocation are recorded by 30 April. Treat the figures here as estimates to check against your verifier's numbers, not as the numbers you file.
- Which rules and sources is the pooling logic based on?
- Regulation (EU) 2023/1805 (FuelEU Maritime) Articles 20, 21 and 23 and Annex IV, and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2027, which sets out how verifiers apply them. Where the binding text is silent or ambiguous, the tool follows the Commission's FuelEU Q&A and the ESSF methodology report; the report's published worked pooling and borrowing examples are part of the tool's test suite. Multi-year banking and borrowing plans, and the RFNBO sub-target pool (which cannot apply before 2034), are not modelled.
- Is my fleet saved?
- Only in this browser. Your vessels and scenario are kept in your browser's local storage so a page reload does not lose them, and "Start a new fleet" clears them. They are not saved to an account, and nothing is stored on our side: the figures are sent to the server to run the calculation and are not kept after it. Clearing your browser data, or opening the page in another browser or device, starts from an empty fleet.
- Is the pooling calculator free?
- Yes, and it needs no account or login.
This page is provided for planning purposes and is not legal or regulatory advice. Pool validity and every balance are ultimately determined by your verifier and recorded in the FuelEU database; confirm figures against the FuelEU Maritime Regulation (EU 2023/1805) and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2027 before relying on them.