The Port of Rotterdam has become a member and board participant of MI – The Global Methanol Alliance, adding the Dutch port to the organisation formerly called the Methanol Institute. Ship & Bunker reported the move alongside figures showing an increase in the port’s sales of biomethanol for use as marine fuel.
Rotterdam sold about 2,845 mt of biomethanol to ships in the second quarter, compared with 996 mt in the preceding quarter, according to the report. Those figures put second-quarter volumes at more than twice the previous quarter’s level. The reported sales relate specifically to biomethanol supplied as marine fuel, rather than the port’s wider methanol trade.
In its announcement of the membership, the alliance described Rotterdam as the first port worldwide to facilitate barge-to-ship methanol bunkering. That claim places the port’s experience with vessel fuelling at the centre of the alliance’s case for its participation. The announcement linked Rotterdam’s practical bunkering experience with its growing activity in methanol, rather than presenting membership solely as an institutional step.
Alexander Döll, chief executive of MI – The Global Methanol Alliance, said development of the methanol market required participation across the entire value chain. He described ports as the point at which fuel supply, infrastructure and demand come together. Döll cited Rotterdam’s pioneering barge-to-ship methanol bunkering operation and expanding methanol trade as examples of how that combination was already taking shape in practice.
For Rotterdam, Matthijs van Doorn, the port’s vice president commercial, identified methanol as an important fuel in efforts to decarbonise both shipping and its industrial cluster. His comments set out a role for methanol extending beyond marine fuel alone, while the quarterly biomethanol sales figures reported by Ship & Bunker provide a measure of the port’s existing ship-fuelling activity.