Published on June 23, 2014

At the International Methanol Producers Association conference in Porto, Portugal which was held on June 12-13, 2014, market participants who attended these meet said that in the European bunkering industry the use of methanol as an alternative marine fuel which remains a distant possibility. As a result of diminution of the sulphur limit in emission control areas, is noted as the main factor driving methanol as well as most of the ship owners are being pushed by the global cap to move away from enduring fuel oil.

However, for few ship owners there are options as they tackle compliance issues with tougher regulations on secretion such as retrofitting to using LNG or methanol as fuel, invest in new ships that run on alternative fuels, switch to cleaner but more expensive marine fuels like gasoil or fit exhaust-gas scrubber systems. As per the industry experts, from the year 2012 onward the world bunker fuel should contain no more than 3.5% sulfur and from the years 2020 onward not more 0.5% sulfer, for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) under the UN International Convention. However from the year July 2010 the limits on sulfur dioxide were set in emission control areas which have been progressively lowered and from the year beginning of 2015 it is expect to further lowered from the current 1% to 0.10%.

According to European producer there are quite a few costing issues like convenient storage of Methanol, the cost of retrofitting the ship and practical and the Methanex which largest supplier of methanol to major international markets of the world, is the only company who has invested into developing competences to use methanol as a marine fuel as the company believes that in longer term methanol could be a feasible option for marine bunking fuel as the other alternatives may prove tricky.

Moreover according to the industry experts, they have not yet tested or tried Methanol as a marine fuel, however it would spur further investment in this area once it starts working. Hence at any one time the recent technology might only be able to support methanol or a full usage of fuel oil, however, the possibility of creating an elastic percentage based usage of both, Methanex which the largest supplier of methanol is investigating on it.
Nevertheless according to Lloyd's Register, cost is noted as one of the major advantages that Methanol has over LNG as a marine fuel and compared with LNG it has been estimated to be at least 20% less in retrofitting engines for methanol consumption.

The first passenger commuter boat, the Stena Germanica which is operated by Stena in Sweden has been fully converted to run solely on Methanol and is anticipated to commence operations in the year 2015 and to the potential of methanol as marine fuel will be the first case study to attest. Furthermore, few of the market players are sanguine about methanol being a budding alternative in the marine fuel industry.