The Swedish Transport Agency has accepted the general methanol operating regulations for ship-to-ship bunkering prepared by the Gothenburg Port Authority (GPA).
"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," GPA underlined in a press release.
The Port of Gothenburg will now work on creating a value chain for supplying the transport industry with e-methanol, among others, the methanol-run container ships ordered by Maersk and X-Press Feeders.
Christoffer Lillhage, GPA's Senior Business Development Manager Energy, explained, "We are also planning for large scale storage of methanol with storage operators in the port when the demand is in place. We encourage methanol producers and stakeholders in the industry to reach out and start a dialog with the Port of Gothenburg as we have set the aim to become a bunker and storage hub for methanol/e-methanol."
Plans speak of providing e-methanol in the port by 2024.
"I am happy to see that Port of Gothenburg is working proactively to facilitate the bunkering of methanol. It is encouraging as we need the ports to be ready when we are to decide where to route our first line of methanol propelled vessels," Sven Siemsen, Senior Manager Marketing Europe, X-Press Feeders, commented.
Claes Fredriksson, CEO and Founder of Liquid Wind, added, "We are pleased to see that ship-to-ship methanol bunkering and infrastructure will come to reality in the Port of Gothenburg. This is a strong benefit for carriers planning to buy our green electrofuel, e-methanol. It enables Liquid Wind and our value chain collaborators to establish multiple production facilities in Sweden and other Nordic countries. A strong and leading e-methanol hub in Gothenburg accelerates our ability to market and distribute our carbon neutral marine fuel to the world. It also puts Sweden on the global fuel export market."