A P Moller-Maersk’s first methanol dual-fuelled feedership has made a fourth and final stop for bunkers in the Dutch Port of Rotterdam in what has been something of a world tour ahead of the ship’s high-profile naming ceremony in Denmark.
The 2,100-teu vessel, which was initially referred to as the Maersk Solstice, was on OCI HyFuels green methanol for the final leg of its maiden voyage to Copenhagen.
Dutch fuel supplier OCI Global claimed this is the first green methanol bunkering operation in Europe.
The feeder ship is being fuelled with green methanol supplied on a mass-balanced approach.
Explaining the process to TradeWinds OCI said that while the green methanol is produced in the US from bio-methane and injected back into the gas grid, the certified molecules for this particular voyage have then been physically shipped to each bunkering location.
Speaking in a recent webinar, Maersk head of energy transition sustainability Ingrid Marie Andersen said that by buying green certificates associated with the fuel, Maersk can claim those environmental savings from it.
Bunker brokers have told TradeWinds that the OCI product is costing Maersk around $2,500 per tonne in very low-sulphur fuel oil equivalent prices.
The feedership was first bunkered with OCI’s methanol product in Ulsan, South Korea in July.
It then took on some 300 tonnes of the certified green methanol on 27 July in the Port of Singapore.
The General Authority for the Suez Canal Economic Zone said the ship was bunkered with 500 tonnes of green methanol in an operation lasting nearly six hours at the Suez Canal Container Terminal in East Port Said in August.
After its Rotterdam bunkering operation the vessel is due to sail to Toldboden Copenhagen where it is to be named by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on 14 September before heading to its regular operational route in the Baltic Sea.
Maersk is running a competition for those wanting to tour the vessel.
Commercially ready low-carbon fuel
OCI has said its green methanol product provides 65% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions over fossil methanol based on a life-cycle basis.
The company claims its OCI HyFuels is the first commercially ready low-carbon fuel available to the marine sector today.
It said the feedership’s voyage has also provided the opportunity to develop and share bunkering guidelines among the global ports involved that will help form a framework for future green methanol-powered ships.
OCI Global, which operates and is in the process of expanding the Port of Rotterdam’s only ammonia import terminal, has teamed with Unibarge to develop what it said will be the world’s first dual-fueled bunker barge powered by green methanol. This will be deployed in the port from 2024.
This article has been updated since it was first published with more detailed information supplied by OCI Global
