ESL Shipping's dry bulker Viikki, usually running on liquefied natural gas, has been tank truck-fuelled with liquefied biogas (LBG), supplied by Gasum, in the Port of Raahe.
"This marks another milestone in our long continuum of sustainability-related investments and actions of recent years. ESL Shipping is committed to reducing emissions, and we believe that the ambitious targets set by our industry, 50% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, can only be reached by using a wide range of alternative fuels," Mikki Koskinen, Managing Director, ESL Shipping, highlighted.
ESL Shipping's Viikki has been transporting iron ore on behalf of SSAB.
Koskinen added in this context, "We have been doing long-term environmental work together with SSAB for years and now we are taking a new, significant step towards fossil-free maritime transport."
Harri Leppänen, Director, Environment and Safety, SSAB, also commented, "Completely fossil-free operations require that fossil fuels have also been removed from transportation."
SSAB aims at becoming, as early as 2026, the first to bring fossil-free steel onto the market. The company's entire operations are scheduled to be fossil-free by 2045.
"The wider deployment of biogas has been delayed by the relatively limited availability of biogas. There is also the cost factor to consider but nowadays more and more companies are seeing the value of reducing emissions throughout their supply chains," ESL Shipping wrote in a press release.
Photo: ESL Shipping