Why marine lubricant purchasing is still a reactive task and how fleet-wide demand visibility can unlock better planning, lower costs, and fewer supply risks.
As fleet sizes grow beyond 15–20 vessels, the complexity of coordinating deliveries across multiple ports, vessels, and suppliers increases significantly. In many cases, procurement teams find themselves managing dozens of parallel orders and delivery arrangements across different time zones, while still relying on largely generic and manual workflows - leaving little room for strategic improvements. At the same time, the underlying technical planning of lubricant consumption and inventory levels typically sits with the vessel’s technical team or superintendent.
As a result, many shipping companies still manage high value orders, such as marine lubricants, reactively. Orders are typically triggered by vessel requisitions - often based on demand signals coming from the vessel or the technical team - rather than on a forward-looking fleet demand. While this approach reflects long-established operational routines, it often limits procurement teams’ abilities. In practice, this means procurement teams must secure supply within a very limited timeframe while coordinating vessel schedules, product availability, and internal approvals. The result is a process that operates under time pressure, facing limited supply options and reduced opportunities for strategic cost optimization.
Meanwhile, available procurement data suggests that much of this pressure could be avoided. With better demand visibility across the entire fleet, procurement teams can shift from reactive order handling to structured demand planning. Demand forecasting is increasingly becoming a game-changer layer in maritime procurement.
The current procurement process
In many fleets, lubricant purchasing still follows a vessel-driven workflow. The typical process begins onboard. When a current need is identified, the vessel sends a requisition to the shore-based purchasing team. In some organizations, the requisition goes directly to procurement; in others, it is first reviewed by the vessel’s technical superintendent. This intermediate approval step historically served as an important safeguard to ensure product compatibility and operational safety. Superintendents checked whether the requested products were correct and whether volumes were appropriate. However, much of this manual validation is no longer necessary. Today, vessel-specific product catalogues can limit available product selections. Requisition requests can also automatically be checked against lubrication charts, tank capacity limits, and remaining onboard inventory. Despite these technological possibilities, many superintendents still prefer manual checks. More importantly, the purchasing team continues to rely on the vessel or the superintendent to initiate the process.
The operational limits of vessel-driven demand detection
When a purchasing activity is triggered by vessel requisitions, the timing of the request becomes critical. In some cases, the vessel submits a requisition only shortly before the next port call where the delivery is supposed to take place. Sometimes the delay is operational. In other cases, internal approval processes extend the timeline before a purchaser receives the request. Once the purchasing team receives the requisition, the delivery window may already be narrow.
This has several operational consequences. First, the number of suitable supply ports becomes limited. If the vessel is approaching a specific port within a short timeframe, procurement may have little flexibility to consider alternative locations. Second, supplier options may be constrained. Not every supplier can deliver the required product in every port, especially on short notice. Third, pricing leverage decreases. When supply options are limited, procurement teams have fewer opportunities to select more competitive ports for supply. In these situations, buyers are often left comparing existing contract prices for a specific port rather than actively optimizing where the lifting should take place. The procurement decision is reactive rather than strategic.
What lubricant procurement data reveals
Recent procurement activity data confirms how frequently this situation occurs. Analysis of lubricant lifting data from 2024 (Source: Closelink) shows that requisitions were raised on average 13.6 days before the expected delivery date. At first glance, this might appear reasonable. However, the distribution of requisitions tells a different story.
- Every fourth enquiry was raised less than one week before delivery.
- Every ninth enquiry was raised only a few days before supply.
In practical terms, this means procurement teams have only a few working days to secure supply before the vessel reaches port. As a result, decisions are often made under immediate ordering pressure. Even in situations where changes to optimize the initial request are identified, time often does not allow additional alignment with the vessel and the technical superintendent to implement the change.
Further analysis of more than 1,000 lubricant requisitions shows that over 25% of orders could have been improved through earlier demand detection and planning. The improvements primarily come from three factors:
- more time between requisition and delivery
- more available supply options
- better port price comparisons for the same product
In other words, the challenge is not simply about procurement efficiency - it is about better visibility.
Why reactive procurement persists
Despite these inefficiencies, requisition-driven procurement remains common across the industry. There are several reasons. First, the vessel has traditionally been the primary source of operational information. Procurement teams depend on onboard crews and superintendents to signal when replenishment is required. Second, procurement-relevant data is often fragmented across different sources and systems. Consumption records, remaining onboard inventory (ROB), vessel schedules, and procurement history may exist in separate tools or spreadsheets. In some cases, this information might simply not be available at all. Without consolidated visibility, forecasting future demand becomes difficult.
Third, many organizations assume that existing supplier contracts already secure competitive pricing. However, this assumption does not hold in practice. Prices for the same lubricant product can vary significantly between two different ports - even within the same supplier contract. Differences of up to 100% between locations are not uncommon. This means that the choice of lifting port can have a major cost impact. If procurement decisions are made only days before delivery, that strategic choice is often lost.
A better model: forecast-driven procurement
A more effective approach is to anticipate demand across the fleet rather than reacting to individual vessel requests. And the good news is that forecast-driven procurement does not require entirely new data sources. Most fleets already generate the necessary operational information. The key is combining these data points into a structured planning process that allows early communication between the vessel, the technical superintendent and the purchaser.
1. Baseline information
First, procurement teams need clear baseline information for each vessel including the number of onboard lubricant tanks for bulk products, max tank capacities - including safety margins - and preferably pre-defined warning and safety reserve limits per individual tank and product. To ensure compliance and smooth operations, the vessel lubrication chart should also be captured and used during continuous monitoring of lubricant requisitions.
2. Inventory & consumption tracking
The second element is remaining onboard inventory (ROB). ROB data indicates how much lubricant remains in each vessel’s storage tanks. When this information is structured and monitored consistently, procurement teams can calculate how long current inventory will last. This allows buyers to anticipate when replenishment will become necessary. It is also possible to automatically detect and clean inaccurate ROB entries, which are usually reported manually, helping to ensure more reliable inventory levels and consumption data.
3. Port calls & schedules
The third element is vessel schedule data. By combining consumption forecasts with sailing schedules and upcoming port calls, procurement teams can determine whether current inventory levels will allow a vessel to safely reach the next suitable supply location. This creates an operational planning metric often referred to as vessel reach - the estimated number of sailing days before inventory approaches pre-defined thresholds or even safety reserve levels. When reach is monitored continuously across the fleet, procurement teams gain an early warning system. Instead of discovering shortages right before a port call, they can identify supply needs weeks in advance.
Operational benefits of forecast-based procurement
Introducing continuous demand forecasting can significantly improve lubricant procurement outcomes. Earlier demand detection increases the time between requisition and delivery. This alone expands the procurement team’s range of supply options and supports valuable conversation between the technical department and procurement.
With more planning time, buyers can:
- evaluate multiple ports for supply
- compare supplier pricing more effectively
- consolidate volumes in preferred lifting locations
- better coordinate deliveries with suppliers
Suppliers also benefit from earlier demand signals. Better forecasting allows them to allocate inventory more efficiently and improve supply reliability.
An additional operational advantage is improved safety planning. This reduces operational risk while maintaining flexibility.
Industry example: BW LPG
The operational impact of improved planning is already visible in practice. One example comes from BW LPG, a globally leading LPG vessel owner and operator listed on both the Oslo and New York stock exchanges. With the implementation of improved planning capabilities, BW LPG achieved an 8% reduction in fleet-wide lubricant spending. According to Rick Ackermann, Head of Procurement at BW LPG, they “are impressed with the tangible savings and attractive ROI reported in the first year.” The improvements were primarily driven by better planning through earlier demand visibility, and a more structured, data-driven decision-making.
The strategic shift ahead
Marine lubricant procurement is gradually evolving. For decades, the industry has relied on vessel-triggered requisitions and manual workflows. While these processes have kept fleets supplied, they also reveal inefficiencies that become more visible as fleets grow and supply chains become more complex. More sophisticated demand forecasting offers a practical way forward. By combining inventory monitoring, consumption analysis, and vessel schedule data, procurement teams can anticipate demand in close cooperation with the technical team rather than simply react to it. In addition, improved planning is just one step of the journey that is currently unfolding in maritime procurement. A deeper integration with supplier operating systems to enable automated data sharing and optimized supply and demand matches is starting to evolve as we speak. For those with a risk to fall behind now, it will only become more difficult to keep up with new developments and opportunities in the future.
Conclusion
More sophisticated, data-driven demand forecasting shifts procurement from reactive ordering to structured fleet-wide planning. For procurement teams, this shift delivers more control over supply decisions. For shipping companies, it unlocks measurable improvements in cost efficiency, operational transparency, and supply chain resilience. In other words, demand forecasting is not just a technological improvement. It is a structural change in how maritime procurement operates.
