For decades, the world’s commercial ships have depended on a fossil fuel so sticky and thick that it needs to be heated to around 150 °C just to get it to flow through a vessel’s innards. Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) is one of the dirtiest fuels out there. “It’s the last step of the [oil] refining process,” says Morten Bo Christiansen, head of the energy transition team at Danish shipping giant Maersk. “You could say, the bottom of the barrel.”
Yet now, as the International Maritime Organization (IMO)—the United Nations branch tasked with managing global shipping—implements new regulations intended to force the shipping industry to cut its sulfur and carbon emissions, HFO is on the chopping block. The new rules have decision-makers like Christiansen racing to figure out which of the myriad potential fuels of the future will ultimately replace it.
Part of Christiansen’s job, alongside dozens of colleagues, is to buy the fuel that powers Maersk’s hundreds of ships. HFO and other fossil fuels, he says, are already beginning to give way to cleaner alternatives.
Quadrise plc (LON:QED) is an energy technology provider whose solutions enable production of cheaper, cleaner, simpler and safer alternatives to fuel oil and biofuels, proven in real world applications. Quadrise technologies produce transition fuels called MSAR® and bioMSAR™, which allow clients in the shipping, utilities and industrial sectors to reduce carbon emissions whilst also saving costs.
