Titan bunkered two NYK vessels with LBM in Zeebrugge
Dutch bunker supplier Titan Clean Fuels bunkered two LNG dual-fuel vessels with unspecified quantities of liquefied biomethane (LBM) at the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium.
IMAGE: Titan's barge supplying LBM to NYK-owned vessel, Sumire Leader. NYK
Titan supplied its mass-balanced LBM to two Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK)-owned vehicle carriers – Daisy Leader in June and Sumire Leader in July. Deliveries were carried out using barges.
Titan produces LBM from bio-based feedstock such as organic waste, agricultural residue or manure and certified with International Sustainability Carbon Certification (ISCC), according to its website.
Biogas is first generated through anaerobic digestion of the feedstock, then upgraded to biomethane by removing CO2 to make it suitable as a bunker fuel comparable to fossil LNG.
The biomethane is injected into the existing natural gas grid and transported to liquefaction plants and storage terminals using the same infrastructure.
This process uses a mass-balancing accounting method, which tracks the share of renewable feedstock in a mixed gas supply chain, to ensure that sustainability claims accurately reflect the actual biogenic input.
LBM can serve as a drop-in fuel for LNG, similar to the way biofuels can be blended with MGO or VLSFO. This means that vessels capable of running on LNG will not need modifications to run on pure LBM or LBM-LNG blends.
“We are very pleased to begin the continued use of bio-LNG fuel. Bio-LNG fuel is a highly effective option for decarbonizing the shipping industry, and we will continue actively promoting its use,” Kaori Takahashi, general manager at NYK Fuel Group said.
Last week, ENGINE-assessed LBM was priced at $1,360/mt on a VLSFO-equivalent basis in the ARA region, with a $622/mt premium over the regional LNG benchmark - without factoring in regulatory benefits for voyages between two EU ports.
By Konica Bhatt
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