Last week Reuters reported on the challenges facing shipping company Maersk in fuelling its first ever ship to run on low-carbon fuel. Its container vessel, The Alette Maersk, had travelled from China to the Port of Los Angeles powered by green methanol, but there was nowhere to buy such fuel in the US, so it had to use petroleum-based fuel for the journey back again.
There’s a chicken-and-egg situation here, much like that facing the construction industry as it develops plant that runs on alternative fuels such as green hydrogen. Until there is government intervention, and demand increases, these new green fuels will be in short supply and very expensive. Maersk reports that green methanol is two to three times more expensive than fossil fuels.
The shipping industry is a big hitter when it comes to carbon emissions, responsible for around 3% of the world’s total emissions. Maersk has set itself a deadline of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 and aims to transport at least 25% of its ocean cargo using green fuels by 2030, expecting to use a wide mix of different fuel types.
China’s Goldwind, the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, will be supplying green methanol to the first 12 of Maersk’s low-carbon ships from 2026. But another potential supplier that Maersk was lining up, Orsted, has dropped plans to build a green methanol plant in Europe because it says the demand for the fuel is ramping up too slowly. Green methanol can be made from biomass or agricultural waste and green energy.
Maersk launched The Alette Maersk in June 2023 and now has five such ships operating and 20 on order, among a total fleet of 300 vessels. The new ships are set up so that they can operate on fossil fuels when green methanol is not available, or too expensive.
Impacts on bitumen
The shipping industry has already been through a major fuel transition in the recent past. On 1 January 2020, a new law came in that limited the sulphur content of fuel for ships to 0.5%, down from 3.5%. This was to reduce emissions of sulphur dioxide which is harmful to health.
Although a few shipping companies installed scrubbers on their ship exhausts to remove the sulphur dioxide, most switched to low sulphur fuel. And this had a big impact on the composition of bitumen which was being produced – since bitumen is a byproduct of the oil refining process.
Low sulphur fuel is produced from lighter, sweeter crude oil which does not produce the heavy residues needed to produce bitumen with lots of asphaltenes which are good for a long road life. The switch meant that bitumen suitable for roads was not being produced by most refineries and instead being created by blending different low value refinery byproducts, changing its properties.
The transition to lower carbon fuel in shipping – and in other sectors – is likely to have an impact on the production of bitumen, and on the materials we will be using to construct our roads. Some bitumens already contain an element of plant-derived materials, marketed as binders for asphalt mixes that ‘lock in’ carbon emissions, since plants use carbon dioxide to grow. However, there will be lots of competition for bio-based products.
We don’t know yet what tomorrow’s ‘bitumen’ will look like. But we can be sure that there are some pretty big changes ahead, as the transition from fossil fuels to greener alternatives picks up pace.
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