Euro 2020 Methanol Halt Highlights Complex Alternative Bunker Supply Chains

Football's relationship with the methanol market is a convoluted one. Image Credit: UEFA

Shipowners considering taking on methanol as their future bunker fuel may need to consider the impact of international football tournaments on their supply chain.

Russia has halted methanol deliveries to Europe for the next month as a safety measure ahead of the upcoming delayed Euro 2020 tournament, price reporting agency S&P Global Platts reported on Tuesday, citing comments from Russian Railways.

"In order to keep St Petersburg and the Vyborg District of Leningrad Oblast safe for UEFA Euro 2020 ... shipments of a number of dangerous goods have been restricted rom June 2 to July 12, 2021," Platts cited the rail operator as saying.

The disruption comes as a reminder of the increasingly complex supply chains that shipping companies are getting themselves into as they explore ways of eliminating their carbon footprint.

The shipping industry is going from being the dominant customer for the largely unloved refining by-product residual fuel oil, to a smaller customer in the middle distillates market seeking blend components for its VLSFO, to a much smaller presence in a multifaceted and increasingly frantic scramble for zero-carbon fuels and biofuels in the coming decades.

Demand for the new fuels is likely to outstrip supply in the first wave of marine decarbonisation, and shipping will find itself competing with some unfamiliar industries in its search for alternative bunkers. In taking on methanol, for example, the industry will be rubbing alongside gasoline blenders, industrial solvent producers and the pipeline industry. Bunker procurement is about to become a much more complicated business.