A.P. Moller Plans to Turn a Hard-to-Find Green Bunker Fuel Into Plastic

Chemical plants and tank farms at Port of Antwerp, Europe's largest integrated chemical-industry cluster (Port of Antwerp)

Published Sep 30, 2024 6:21 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

The family holding company A.P. Moller is known best as the owner of Maersk, and it has invested heavily to build a green-methanol supply chain for Maersk Line's growing portfolio of dual-fuel methanol boxships. Green methanol is an essential ingredient for the shipping industry's transition, and it is in short supply; A.P. Moller's in-house energy portfolio allows Maersk to run some of its ships on low-carbon fuel, a competitive advantage as regulations tighten. A.P. Moller has now announced plans to turn some of this fuel into plastic instead. 

On Monday, a newly formed fossil-free plastics company announced plans to build a large plant in Antwerp that will draw its feedstock from A.P. Moller's green methanol sourcing network. The plant will turn green methanol into polypropylene (commonly used for packaging) and polyethylene (often used for disposable plastic bags and bottles). These are non-biodegradable products with the same attributes as conventional plastics, but made with a renewable source of methanol. 

The A.P. Moller-owned firm, Vioneo, says that it has designed its plant with proven technologies and will run its facility on renewable power, eliminating all CO2 emissions from production. The company believes that this will save up to six kilos of CO2 per kilo of plastic produced, and will achieve the lowest cost of carbon abatement on the market. The firm's name comes from the Latin words for "journey" and "new," and Vioneo says that it "has the potential to revitalize the European chemicals sector and position Europe as a leader in defossilizing the [plastics] industry."

Vioneo's first plastics plant will begin consuming green methanol in 2028, two years ahead of the IMO target date for decarbonizing five percent of the global bunker fuel supply. 

"A.P. Moller Holding is committed to driving the transition to low-carbon and fossil-free sources by advancing green methanol production and its applications across various sectors. The launch of Vioneo marks a significant step in this commitment," said A.P. Moller CIO Jan T. Nielsen in a statement. 

In August, A.P. Moller Holding's Maersk unit announced plans to order up to 60 dual-fuel newbuilds, including - for the first time - an unspecified number of LNG dual-fuel ships. Until the August announcement, Maersk was solely committed to green methanol as its dual fuel, and its executives had previously dismissed the potential of LNG as "another fossil fuel."