Kickster Group has placed 40.5% of 8,973 vessels in analytical deficit-risk categories, while official first-cycle figures show that 90% of ships used FuelEU Maritime pooling, according to Kickster Group.
The assessment classified 2,036 ships in a minor analytical-deficit category and 1,596 in a major category, giving a combined total of 3,632 vessels.
A further 3,620 ships, or 40.3% of the sample, were assessed as having an estimated surplus, while 1,721 vessels, or 19.2%, were close to balance.
Kickster based its FuelEU Readiness Proxy on publicly available EU monitoring, reporting and verification data. The methodology assigned a 40% weighting to technical efficiency measured through the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index and 60% to operational CO₂-equivalent intensity per transport work.
Records with incomplete information were removed, together with the highest 1% of values for each variable to reduce the effect of reporting anomalies.
The two indicators had a correlation of 0.413, indicating that technical efficiency alone does not determine a vessel’s relative FuelEU readiness.
Kickster stressed that the categories are not verified regulatory compliance balances. The public EU MRV dataset does not include verified well-to-wake greenhouse-gas intensity, pooling allocations or banking and borrowing information used in the official FuelEU process.
The European Maritime Safety Agency verified more than 13,000 FuelEU reports between 1 January and 31 March 2026. By 30 April, more than 12,000 compliance-balance reports covering over 90% of vessels had been verified as satisfactory, while pooling had been applied by 90% of ships.
FuelEU pooling allows one vessel’s over-compliance to offset another ship’s underperformance, provided the pool’s total compliance balance remains positive.
Commercial costs and contractual terms are left to private agreements between participating companies.
Founded in 2016, Kickster Group is a privately held Italian consultancy headquartered in Milan, with an office in Piraeus, Greece. It specialises in EU climate policy, carbon markets and decarbonisation and operates a subscription-based FuelEU pooling marketplace for shipowners, charterers and other maritime businesses.