Biofuel Powered Grain Shipment to Depart WA

January 07, 2022

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by Shannon Beattie (Farm Weekly) In an Australian-first, a grain vessel due to set sail from the CBH Group Albany Grain Terminal on Sunday will be powered by biofuel.

CBH has partnered with leading dry bulk operator Oldendorff Carriers to ship 30,000 tonnes of sustainably certified malting barley to Vietnam aboard a vessel which will be bunkered with a biofuel blend, supplied by integrated energy company bp.

That blend is estimated to produce about 15 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions for this journey than conventional fossil fuels. READ MORE

Beer, barley, biofuels – CBH leads Australia-first biofuel trial on sustainable barley shipment (Biofuels Digest)

CBH leads Australia-first biofuel trial on sustainable barley shipment (CBH Group)

Oldendorff Testing Second-generation Biofuels (Marine Link)

CBH and Oldendorff Carriers trial ship journey with biofuel blend (Farm Weekly)

Excerpt from Biofuels Digest: The grain being shipped? ISCC-certified barley going to Intermalt whose largest brewing customer is Heineken. Sustainable grain on a sustainable ship for more sustainable beer. Cheers to that!

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The CBH Group has partnered with leading dry bulk operator Oldendorff Carriers to conduct the first biofuel trial on a grain vessel exporting from Australia. CBH Marketing and Trading is shipping 30,000 tons of sustainably certified malting barley aboard the Edwine Oldendorff, which departed from the Albany Grain Terminal in Australia bound for Vietnam on Sunday.

CBH Chief Marketing and Trading Officer Jason Craig said the co-operative was proud to be pioneering efforts, alongside two of its global partners, to explore ways to reduce its carbon footprint along the supply chain.

The malting barley, which is accredited as sustainable under the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) program, is set for Vietnam’s leading malting company, Intermalt.

Intermalt services a number of brewing customers, the largest being Heineken, which has set a target of a carbon neutral value chain by 2040.

In 2020-21, CBH sold 1.2 million tons of sustainably certified grain and reduced Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions on a per ton basis by 38 per cent from the previous year.

The fuel

The vessel will be bunkered with a biofuel blend for the trial, supplied by integrated energy company bp. The biofuel blend is estimated to produce about 15 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions for this journey than conventional fossil fuels.

While CBH and bp didn’t disclose the biofuel content, we can guess it could be fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) blended with very low sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO). FAME is a biofuel largely produced from recycled cooking oils and renewable oil sources and is what bp used just a few weeks ago with their Maersk Tankers biofuel trials, as reported by The Digest.

The trial will provide information on how the vessel engine responds to biofuel, its speed and efficiency, and measure the emissions it produces.

We have a feeling they will find what many others have found on their biofuel trials which is that it performs just as well or better than conventional fuels, like the bp and Maersk Tankers biofuel trials recently completed that showed it can be used as a marine ‘drop-in fuel’. Or Eagle Bulk Shipping’s experience with fossil-free voyages thanks to GoodFuels’ advanced marine biofuel, as reported in The Digest just a few weeks ago. READ MORE