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SPOTLIGHT: Scandinavia
GREENER AND CLEANER Scandinavian countries continue to spearhead the move towards environmentally friendly approaches to port development and the use of cleaner fuels
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s countries continue to tackle the logistics of moving to the use and provision of greener forms of energy and propulsion products, Gothenburg Port Authority has published general methanol operating regulations for ship-to-ship bunkering in April. By 2030, the Port of Gothenburg has set out the ambitious target to reduce shipping emissions by 70% within the port area. One key step to reach this goal is to provide a variety of shipping fuels that contribute to bring down emissions – in the port as well as on a global scale.
Many initiatives are taken around the world with net-zero vessels now in the order books. “From the Port of Gothenburg, we want to support this by enabling these vessels to take bunker at their convenience. Therefore, we are happy to say that we have received acceptance from the Swedish Transport Agency for the general methanol operating regulations for ship-to-ship bunkering. This work has been finalised after great support from Saeed Mohebbi from the Swedish Transport Agency. His knowledge and support has been very
THE PORT OF GOTHENBURG IS AIMING TO BECOME THE PRIMARY BUNKERING HUB FOR RENEWABLE METHANOL IN NORTHERN EUROPE (CREDIT: GOTHENBURG PORT AUTHORITY)
BULK TERMINALS
international | SUMMER 2022
valuable,” says Christoffer Lillhage, senior business development manager energy at the Gothenburg Port Authority. As this is a general approval for the port, each terminal will do a complementary risk assessment, but this is more of a formality when the general guidelines now are in place. For example, the Port of Gothenburg has already handled methanol in the port since 2015 when Stena Line started to bunker Stena Germanica truck to vessel. “Now we hope to see Maersk, X-press Feeders and many other shipping lines routing their new methanol vessels to the North of Europe and we would be delighted to welcome them with open arms to the largest port in Scandinavia,” says Elvir Dzanic, CEO at Gothenburg Port Authority. X-Press Feeders is the world´s largest independent feeder carrier, and one of the major players dedicated to introducing methanol as a shipping fuel on a larger scale already in 2023. With the introduction of eight state-of-theart 1,170 TEU container ships capable of being operated on carbon neutral methanol, X-Press Feeders is soon one step closer to reaching its target of having net-zero emissions from operations by 2050.
