The list of alternative-fuel bunker operations kept growing this week. In Ulsan, South Korea, Eastern Pacific Shipping's Terra Clove took on green ammonia sourced from Envision Energy's production site in Inner Mongolia and delivered by Lotte Fine Chemical. CMB.TECH's Mineral Europa completed a ship-to-ship green ammonia bunkering at Australia's Port Hedland, supplied by the bunker vessel Shenghang Yongle.
In China, OOCL's methanol-capable boxship OOCL Grace received 983 mt of bio-methanol at Yantian.
The operations show alternative fuels can move through different supply chains and into ships' tanks. Making them routine is another matter. Singapore's port authority and Qingdao Port have laid groundwork for more methanol bunkering along their shared corridor and will study pooling demand between the two ports. Aggregating demand could help suppliers justify regular deliveries and infrastructure investment, though no timeline for pilots has been disclosed.
Demand estimates are coming into focus. A feasibility study by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach puts methanol bunker demand at 64,000-250,000 mt/year by 2030, with LNG at 65,000-115,000 mt/year.
Infrastructure remains the constraint. Only 29 ports worldwide offered some form of methanol bunkering in April, according to Clarksons Research data cited in a report by the Global Maritime Forum and University College London. Ammonia bunkering is even more limited. DNV counts 171 methanol- and ethanol-capable vessels in operation with 292 on order through 2031, and eight ammonia-capable vessels in operation with 42 on order by 2030.
For shippers on China-US lanes, the near-term impact on rates and capacity is minimal, but the fleet is shifting. With nearly 300 methanol-capable ships on order, whether bunkering networks keep pace will determine if these vessels deliver real emissions cuts or simply sail as conventional ships.