Trafigura and Shipping Firms Lobby EU Over Support for Hydrogen and Ammonia

The letter from the eight organisations was sent on Wednesday. Image Credit: Transport & Environment

Commodity trader Trafigura and three shipping firms have joined forces to lobby the European Union to give greater support to hydrogen and ammonia as future marine fuels and dismiss biofuels.

Trafigura, DFDS, CMB, Viking Cruises, Lloyd's Register, industry body Hydrogen Europe and environmental group Transport & Environment jointly signed the letter, which calls for upcoming changes to maritime fuel policy from the European Commission to include support for green hydrogen and ammonia.

The letter makes no mention of methanol, which Maersk recently chose as the fuel for its first zero-carbon ship.

"There are many potential alternative fuels for shipping, but not all are equally promising," the companies said in the letter.

"Crop-based biofuels are more damaging than fossil fuels.

"And while some advanced biofuels could provide emissions reductions, they are limited in sustainable bio-feedstock availability.

"Therefore, the solutions, to be stimulated by the FuelEU maritime initiative, need to be sought among technologies that can be both sustainable and scalable.

"Green hydrogen and ammonia provide such a solution as they can deliver zero-carbon propulsion and can be produced in virtually unlimited quantities.

"These fuels are currently very expensive compared to fossil fuels, but production costs can be reduced with economies of scale.

"To justify large investments in electrolysers and ammonia plants, European maritime fuel policy needs to send a clear demand signal for the potential investors by focusing on these green fuels and their relevant propulsion technologies."

Producing green hydrogen and ammonia for shipping would require global capital investments of about 1.4 trillion euros, the companies said.