Methanol-powered ship to set sail on Europe's first "green" route July 11, 2024

Port of Rotterdam

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Methanol-powered ship to set sail on Europe's first "green" route

Rotterdam, Netherlands, July 10 (AFP), 2024

The first methanol-powered ship to ply the routes between Europe's busy ports was unveiled on Tuesday in Rotterdam, with ship owners hoping to boost efforts to reduce the sector's huge carbon footprint.

The Eco-Maestro, a 13,675-ton container carrier, will head for Antwerp in the next few days, before setting a course for Klaipeda in Lithuania and Riga in Latvia, its owners said.

With a capacity to carry more than 1,200 standard containers, Eco-Maestro is one of the few ships in the world capable of operating on both "green" bio-methanol and normal fuel, which is much more polluting.

"We are providing the first feeder network in Europe with methanol-powered ships," said Francis Goh, operations director at X-Press Feeders.

Completed in China earlier this year, the Eco-Maestro is equipped with state-of-the-art engines that can run on methanol, a sustainable fuel made from decomposed organic matter.

"We estimate that the methanol we are using will emit around 65% less carbon" than normal fuel, Goh told AFP.

Global shipping - which usually runs on diesel and other bunker fuels - contributed around 2% of the world's carbon emissions in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.

According to new guidelines from the International Maritime Organization, emissions from shipping need to be cut by at least 40% by 2030 and reduced to zero by 2050 if the Paris Climate Accords are to be met.

There are currently around 29 methanol-powered ships in operation around the world, and this number is expected to double by the end of the year, according to DNV, a Norwegian maritime services company.

The increase in the number of methanol-powered ships is largely driven by the container sector.

X-Press Feeders will use a total of 14 dual-fuel ships on its feeder routes from Rotterdam to the Baltic, which also includes regular services to Helsinki.

So-called "feeder ships" play an important role in the logistics supply chain, as they transport containers between smaller ports and larger "hub" ports such as Rotterdam and Antwerp.

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