During the coming weeks Stena Bulk will perform a test running a medium range tanker on one hundred per cent biofuel. The fuel is the MR1-100 bio-fuel oil, produced from used cooking oil and supplied by GoodFuels in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

The fuel has been bunkered onto the Stena Immortal and will be used to power the main engine in normal operations to test and prove the technical and operational feasibility.

‘By doing this test we want to contribute to push the industry and pave way towards more sustainable shipping,’ says Erik Hånell, President and CEO Stena Bulk. ‘We want to be able to offer our customers additional options with less environmental impact in the future and by conducting the trial in normal operations we want to show that being sustainable doesn´t have to interfere with core business,’ he continues.

Compatible with regular fuels

Bio-fuels are compatible with regular fuels, but produced from biomass or biowaste instead of fossil oil. While there are many kinds of bio-fuel, Stena Bulk is only using second generation fuel, meaning they are based on waste and thereby do not compete with food production. In this case, the fuel is made from used cooking oil.

83 per cent CO2 reduction

The reduction of CO2 by using this particular bio-fuel is around 83 per cent, according to Stena Bulk. In this trial, it is expected emissions will be reduced by 690 metric tonnes. These figures are from a life cycle perspective, that is, including production and distribution of the fuel.

Apart from contributing to a large reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the fuel also emits significantly lower levels of SOX than regular compliant fuels.

Picture (top): Stena Immortal bunkering bio-fuel.