SSAB, ESL Shipping and Gasum are working together to reduce the emissions arising in shipping SSAB’s raw materials. Last year, SSAB and ESL Shipping introduced a new transport chain that, in comparison with its predecessor, nearly halved the CO2 emissions originating in shipping SSAB’s raw materials between Luleå, Oxelösund and Raahe. The improved transport chain brought into use ESL Shipping’s new ships Viikki and Haaga which are fueled by LNG rather than conventional fuels.

Now these companies are piloting the use of bio-LNG as a supplementary fuel to further replace fossil fuels. In the test that kicked off this month, M/S Viikki was fueled with LNG and one tanker load of bio-LNG which was brought to SSAB Raahe from the Gasum Terminal in Pori. This is the first time that biogas is used as fuel for ships in Finland.

 “With this test, we aim to find out whether biogas could be used in small amounts for maritime transport to reduce emissions. The methane in biogas originates from biogenic material and so does not contain any fossil coal. This means the amount of biogas used in the test could further reduce the fossil CO2 emissions originating in this transport chain by between 25% and 28%,” said Harri Leppänen, Head of Environment, Health & Safety at SSAB.

Efforts toward removing fossil CO2 emissions from the transport chain would require replacing all LNG with bio-LNG and replacing the diesel fuel used to power the ship’s engine with fossil-free biodiesel.

“Our company’s key environmental goal for 2020 is testing biogas in our ships. We have been engaged in long-term environmental work together with SSAB for years, and now we are taking a new significant step towards fossil-free sea transport, “commented Mikki Koskinen, ESL Shipping’s Managing Director.

“The test with ESL and SSAB is in line with our strategy to bring cleaner fuels to our customers. We are all the time increasing our biogas production and sourcing to meet growing demand of our customers. We are already in discussions with ESL about running vessels Viikki and Haaga on 100% bio-LNG,” added Jacob Granqvist, Sales Director maritime, Gasum.

Source: Gasum