Shipping company AP Moller – Maersk (Maersk) has begun a partnership with Debo, a Chinese bioenergy enterprise, to accelerate the global production capacity of green methanol. The announcement follows six strategic partnerships made by Maersk earlier in 2022 for green methanol.
Having signed a letter of intent, Debo plans to develop a bio-methanol project for Maersk in China, with a total capacity of 200,000 metric tons per year when commercial operations begin in the autumn of 2024. Feedstocks for the production of green methanol will be agricultural residues, and Maersk intends to offtake the full volume produced.
The six other partnerships – with CIMC ENRIC, European Energy, Green Technology Bank, Orsted, Proman and WasteFuel – were made with the intent of sourcing approximately 730,000 metric tons of green methanol each year by the end of 2025. The total amount of green methanol is more than the company needs for its first 12 green container vessels which are currently on order.
“Maersk has set an ambitious end-to-end net-zero goal for 2040 and the availability of green methanol at scale is critical to our fleet’s transition to sustainable energy,” said Berit Hinnemann, head of green fuels sourcing, AP Moller – Maersk. “Partnerships across ecosystems and geographies are essential for the scale-up needed in order to make meaningful progress on this agenda already in this decade.”
“The use of green methanol as marine fuel to replace the existing fossil fuel is groundbreaking in the container shipping history and will strongly promote the development of green shipping,” added Zhang Shoujun, chairman and general manager, Debo. “It is a great honor for Debo to work with A.P. Moller – Maersk to promote the commercialization of the green methanol industrial chain. I firmly believe that through the cooperation, we are able to realize the commercial production and industrial conversion of green methanol and contribute to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”