THE Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation has completed trialling two supply chains of biofuel blends sourced from different origins.

According to a statement from the GCMD, the trials involved tracing biofuels from their production sites to Singapore, where the fuels were blended and bunkered. Lab testing of the fuels continued until they were consumed onboard.

The trial ran from 31 October 2022 to 15 February this year. It involved five vessels; about 4700 MT of sustainable biofuel blends were bunkered.

One of the two biofuel supply chains in the trial used cooking oil methyl ester blended with very low sulphur fuel oil. The other used the same cooking oil methyl ester but blended it with high sulphur fuel oil.

In the first supply chain, Chevron provide B24 VLSFO (24% biofuel blend) to CMA CGM Maupassant and MOL Endowment. Also, Chevron bunkered B20 HSFO (20% biofuel blend) in its own Singapore Voyager and another tanker.

In the second supply chain, TotalEnergies Marine Fuels provided B24 VLSFO to Lycast Peace, which is owned by NYK and chartered to Astomos Energy.

GCMD said the supply-chain trials were undertaken under “business-as-usual conditions” where bunkering took place with vessels on commercial routes.

The centre said it used a range of tracing techniques, including dosing with physical tracers, fingerprinting and deploying a “lock-and-seal methodology”, all of which were complemented with laboratory testing and analysis.

GCMD director of projects and lead on this project Prapisala Thepsithar said through the trials a better appreciation of the complexities of real-world was gained.

“We have learned the hard lesson that not all tracing techniques are directly applicable for tracing sustainable biofuels as they stand and we are currently undertaking efforts to refine their deployment,” Dr Thepsithar said.

“I am grateful for the support from and flexibility of our project partners in overcoming the roadblocks encountered during our trials. These learnings will inform our subsequent trials in the months ahead.”

GCMD CTO Sanjay Kuttan said, “The lack of assurance on the quality, quantity and emissions abatement of biofuels is a painpoint we identified from interviewing more than 100 industry stakeholders. These trials were curated to address this gap.

“In developing a framework to provide transparency and bolster the integrity of the biofuels supply chain, we hope to increase user confidence and decrease the barrier for wider adoption.”