The official balance of petroleum product consumption published by the Corporación de Reservas Estratégicas (CORES) for 2026 to date and full-year 2025 reveals an unbridgeable operational divide in the energy map of the Central Atlantic. The demographic and economic symmetry traditionally attributed to the two Canary Islands provinces is completely dismantled when the distribution of heavy fuel is analyzed. The marine fuel oil (BIA) market does not reflect competition between equals, but rather the near-total dominance of the eastern province, which shapes the archipelago’s transport, port logistics and decarbonization strategy.
Transparency note/Disclosure: The author has no open positions, financial interests or advisory ties with any of the shipping agents, shipping companies, investment funds or public authorities cited in this article.
The economic reading of the Canary Islands’ energy model confirms a sharply dual specialization. While Las Palmas acts as an external logistics platform focused on the large-scale sale of heavy fuel to ships and aircraft in transit, Santa Cruz de Tenerife is consolidating a high-value-added domestic consumption economy with a smaller heavy-carbon footprint. The containment of fuel oil volumes gives the Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife less dependence on traditional fossil bunkers and a more agile position from which to undertake the transition toward cold ironing and the supply of methanol or green ammonia to the passenger fleet.
In 2025, Las Palmas province absorbed 1.47 million metric tons of heavy fuel oil, compared with the 241,161 tons recorded in Santa Cruz de Tenerife province. This 6.1-to-1 disparity underscores the overwhelming dominance of the Port of La Luz in the international and inter-island bunkering business. The Gran Canaria port operates as the main refueling point for the wider Atlantic region, capturing long-distance transshipment routes between Europe, West Africa and South America, while Tenerife retains a secondary provisioning profile focused on technical calls, cabotage and smaller-scale traffic.
Data from the first seven months of 2026 corroborate the rigidity of this structural gap. Between January and July, Las Palmas accumulated 780,273 metric tons of BIA fuel oil, accounting for 84% of the 928,267 tons marketed across the archipelago. Over the same period, Santa Cruz de Tenerife recorded 147,993 tons. This concentration of volume gives Las Palmas greater financial muscle in customs settlements and taxes on marine hydrocarbons, but directly exposes it to global freight-rate volatility and the regulatory penalties imposed by the European emissions system (EU ETS).
Statistics on aviation kerosene arriving at Tenerife’s ports show that Las Palmas captured 59% of the regional market in 2024, with 461,477 tons, compared with 320,687 tons in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, out of a regional total of 782,164 tons, up 0.39% from the previous year. The gap remained in the first quarter of 2025, when the airports of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura absorbed 117,846 tons of Jet A-1 out of the 200,368 tons consumed in the Canary Islands, leaving the western province with 82,522 tons. The greater density of international routes and charter services at the eastern airports explains this volume advantage.
However, the analysis of land-based consumption of light fuels completely reverses the regional hierarchy and reveals the qualitative strength of the Tenerife market. In the road gasoline segment, covering 95- and 98-octane fuel, Santa Cruz de Tenerife again ranked above Las Palmas in 2025, reaching a total of 280,669 tons compared with 276,599 tons. The driver of this overtaking was 98-octane premium gasoline, where the western province comfortably surpassed the eastern one, with 59,648 tons versus 43,569, or 36.9% more. In the year-to-date figures through July 2026, the trend is replicated almost exactly: Santa Cruz de Tenerife leads 98-octane gasoline sales with 31,568 tons, compared with 23,483 tons in Las Palmas, while the two provinces remain virtually level in total gasoline sales, at 161,040 metric tons in the west versus 160,798 in the east.
This strength in high-end fuels points to a land vehicle fleet with greater technical requirements, intensive penetration of higher-end tourist rental fleets and highly active internal mobility in Tenerife. By contrast, on-road diesel A recorded a slight advantage for Las Palmas in 2025, with 324,881 tons compared with 317,011 tons in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The pattern was repeated during the first seven months of 2026, with 184,364 tons in the eastern province and 179,642 in the western province.
The article Tenerife’s capital port leads the Canary Islands in premium fuel consumption was first published on canarymaritime.com.
