STX Group and Titan Clean Fuels (Titan) have completed a major milestone in sustainable shipping having completed the largest ever ship-to-ship bunkering operation for Bio-liquefied natural gas (Bio-LNG).
The partners delivered 2,200 metric tonnes of Bio-LNG to a Hapag-Lloyd container vessel in Rotterdam, marking Hapag-Lloyd’s first time using Bio-LNG has an eco-friendly shipping fuel.
The project is the result of a collaboration between STX Group and Titan, who have been working together to liquefy, store and transport mass-balanced biomethane in Zeebrugge, Belgium.
According to Jan Christensen, Senior Director Fuel Purchasing at Hapag-Lloyd, the deal proves that bunkering large quantities of Bio-LNG is both possible and scalable.
“However, there is still more progress required regarding the necessary infrastructure and the regulatory framework,” he added.
“For us, bunkering liquefied biomethane is another measure in our step-by-step approach to further decarbonise our operations to reach our goal of becoming Net Zero by 2045.”
The fuel supplied from Titan’s Alice Cosulich vessel is produced from sustainable biomass feedstocks such as industrial and agricultural waste streams that do not compete with food production. These are nationally or regionally defined by the EU (RED II) in Europe and the EPA (Renewable Fuel Standards) in the US.
Bio-LNG can be delivered in the form of physical molecules or ‘Mass Balanced’ whereby biomethane is injected into the gas network and transported to liquefaction plants and LNG terminals using the existing infrastructure through a system of mass balancing.
“This transaction is a proof of how liquefied biomethane can be a powerful tool on the path to a lower carbon transport sector,” said Sead Keric, Managing Partner of Renewable Gas at STX Group.
Figures from SEA-LNG reveal that ship-to-shore Bio-LNG bunkering is available in almost 70 ports worldwide, including in Singapore, Rotterdam and the US east coast.
Annual production of biomethane, from which Bio-LNG is produced, is currently around 30m tonnes or around 10% of shipping’s total annual energy demand.
