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d’Amico plans fleet-wide biofuel rollout

Following the successful trial on one of its LR1 product tankers, d’Amico, one of the top names in Italian shipping, is looking at rolling out the use of biofuel across its fleet.

The biofuel blend B30 used in the test was supplied by Trafigura maritime fuel supply and procurement joint venture with Frontline and Golden Ocean, TFG Marine.

The aim now is to get the fuel used on all its LR1s and then progressively across its other tankers and dry bulk carriers.

Salvatore d’Amico, fleet director at d’Amico Group, commented: “Biofuel is one of the decarbonisation strategies we are exploring in d’Amico for the existing tonnage. While we are closely monitoring the development of alternative fuels of the future, new technology for the propulsion and continue to invest in innovative digital solutions, we do believe that using the biofuel blend can speed up the decarbonisation of the maritime transportation with an immediate effect on the existing tonnage”.

Cesare D’Api, deputy technical director at d’Amico Group, said: “While there are currently a lot constraints about the green fuel of the future in terms of availability and scale up, the main two regulatory body EU and IMO has not yet lined up the strategy to account for GHG emissions and few technologies to burn the green fuel of the future are still under development, we have the possibility to give an immediate and practical contribution to the reduction of CO2 footprint using the so called drop in solutions.”

The biofuel blends eyed by d’Amico comply with forthcoming EU fuel regulations due to kick in by 2025.

Sam Chambers

Starting out with the Informa Group in 2000 in Hong Kong, Sam Chambers became editor of Maritime Asia magazine as well as East Asia Editor for the world’s oldest newspaper, Lloyd’s List. In 2005 he pursued a freelance career and wrote for a variety of titles including taking on the role of Asia Editor at Seatrade magazine and China correspondent for Supply Chain Asia. His work has also appeared in The Economist, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and The International Herald Tribune.

Comments

  1. Has the real impact of the use of so-called bio fuels really been forensically investigated. These fuels are still burned inside the cylinders of the main propulsion units resulting in hot gas emissions. What is the real gain in terms of CO2 and particulate benefits. There seems to be endless trumpeting about fuelling options but little by way of hard evidence they produce the claimed reductions.

    The real elephant in the room in all of this is the landside emissions problems linked to the movement of bulk and inter-modal cargo to/from ports. In aggregated terms this completely out guns the maritime originating gases and particulates. The silo mentality pervading in the movement of cargo neatly overlooks this problem.

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