STX Group, a global leader in environmental commodities trading and climate solutions, and Titan Clean Fuels, a leading supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquefied biomethane (LBM) to shipping customers, today announce having successfully concluded a ship-to-ship bunkering of 2,200 metric tons of LBM to a Hapag-Lloyd container vessel in the port of Rotterdam. This transaction marks Hapag-Lloyd’s entry into using LBM as sustainable shipping fuel, representing the largest ship-to-ship bunkering operation known till date, according to STX's release.
STX Group and Titan Clean Fuels have collaborated to liquify and store mass-balanced biomethane in Zeebrugge in Belgium under ISSC certification fully recognized under the European Union´s Renewable Energy Directive known as RED II.
Liquefied biomethane (LBM), also known as bio-LNG, is an established sustainable bunker fuel that can be net-zero emissions depending on the feedstock and is commercially available in Europe, Asia and North America. The biomethane is produced from sustainable biomass feedstocks such as industrial and agricultural waste streams that do not compete with food production. These are nationally or regionally defined, for example by the EU (RED II) in Europe and the EPA (Renewable Fuel Standards) in the USA.
LBM can be delivered in the form of physical molecules or “Mass Balanced” whereby biomethane is injected into the gas network and transported to liquefaction plants and LNG terminals using the existing infrastructure through a system of mass balancing. Mass balancing is expected to be a feature on many alternative fuel pathways and offers a practical way of delivering the volumes of clean marine fuel the shipping industry requires.