GS Caltex, POSCO, H-Line Shipping team up to introduce ships powered by biofuel

Three companies involved in oil refining, steelmaking and shipbuilding have joined hands to introduce a fleet of ships running on marine biofuel to reduce carbon emissions.

A senior official from the Supply and Trading Department at GS Caltex met their counterparts from POSCO and H-Line Shipping to sign a memorandum of understanding at GS Tower in southern Seoul, Thursday, to jointly pursue the project.

The agreement reveals a new value chain in the country’s maritime industry under which a marine biofuel provider, a fuel tank maker and a fuel tanker operator cooperate towards carbon emission reduction goals. As their first agenda, the firms have agreed to fuel POSCO’s bulk carrier with marine biofuels and launch it later this month.

Officially termed B30 Bio Marine Fuel, GS Caltex’s new biofuel is a mixture of the company’s heavy oil for vessels and Korean bioenergy developer DS Dansuk’s used cooking oil-based biodiesel for vessels. GS Caltex last August acquired ISCC EU, a certification by the European Commission for sustainability and emission reductions.

Made with recyclable waste feedstocks, marine biofuel saves more than 65 percent of carbon emissions compared to traditional fossil fuel-based marine fuel. A new type of marine biofuel made with used cooking oil-based biodiesel can reduce carbon emissions by more than 80 percent. It is also cheaper than methanol or ammonia and can be used without additional facilities or vessels.

The International Maritime Organization, at the meeting of its Marine Environment Protection Committee last July in London, acknowledged the fuel’s carbon neutralization effect.

GS Caltex said Thursday the new tripartite partnership will contribute to the government’s goal of neutralizing national carbon emissions by 2050.

This isn’t the first time GS Caltex has applied its new biofuel in practice. On Sept. 15, HMM Tacoma, a 6,400 twenty-foot equivalent unit container ship built by Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Merchant Marine, was topped up with the fuel at Busan New Port before departing for Singapore. Earlier the same month, the company supplied Korean Air with its new sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to test during a flight from Incheon to Los Angeles.
Source: The Korea Times