MAN Energy Solutions signed a framework agreement with COSCO Shipping Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. (CHI) regarding their future cooperation on decarbonization retrofit projects. The new framework agreement provides for the retrofitting of existing ships to operation on new alternative fuels such as methane, methanol and ammonia—all fuels that can be... Read more →

C2X, a developer of green methanol projects, and ENEOS Corporation, Japan’s leading energy company, jointly announced a combined investment in C2X of $100 million from ENEOS and existing shareholders A.P. Møller Holding and A.P. Møller – Mærsk. The transaction is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions including applicable... Read more →

European Energy has successfully produced the first e-methanol at the Kassø Power-to-X facility. The methanol was produced in the first methanol line out of two at the facility and was achieved using biogenic CO2 sourced locally at the Biogas facility in Tønder. The production will now be ramped up and... Read more →

Swiss marine power company WinGD’s first methanol-fueled engine is to be delivered to the shipyard after passing factory and type approval tests. The ten-cylinder, 92‑bore X-DF-M engine is destined for a 16,000 TEU container ship and is the biggest methanol-fueled engine built to date. There are 56 X-DF-M engines on... Read more →

MAN Energy Solutions reports that its MAN 7L21/31DF-M (Dual Fuel-Methanol) GenSet has successfully passed its Type Approval Test (TAT) in China. The TAT was carried out in close cooperation with CSSC Marine Power (CMP)—the MAN Energy Solutions licensee—at CMP’s production facility in Zhenjiang and received approval from all major classification... Read more →

Repsol’s Board of Directors approved a major investment in the Ecoplant, a pioneering project in Europe to transform urban waste into renewable fuels and circular products, adding a solution for reducing CO2 emissions in the transport sector, while at the same time promoting the circular economy. Located in Tarragona, this... Read more →

Johnson Matthey’s (JM) e-methanol technology has been selected by Reolum for the next phase of its La Robla Nueva Energia (NE) project. Located in the Spanish region of Castilla y León, it will be one of the largest e-methanol production plants in Europe, planned to be online by the end... Read more →

Liquid Wind and Turun Seudun Energiantuotanto Oy (TSE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the development of an eFuel facility in Naantali, Finland. The eFuel facility is planned to be adjacent to TSE’s local power plant Naantali 4 which will deliver biogenic CO2 and steam for the production of... Read more →

MAN Energy Solutions announced the successful retrofit of the main engine of the Maersk Halifax to a dual-fuel MAN B&W ME-LGIM unit. MAN PrimeServ, MAN Energy Solutions’ after-sales division, carried out the work, the first such project globally involving a VLCV (Very Large Container Vessel). The 15,000 teu vessel entered... Read more →

Hapag-Lloyd has reached an agreement with Goldwind, a global strategic partner in clean energy with headquarters in Beijing, China, for the delivery of 250,000 tonnes of green methanol per year. The green methanol will consist of a blend of bio- and e-methanol, ensuring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction of at... Read more →

Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and Toyota Motor have used a surrogate for a methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) fuel to study numerically the effects of gasoline composition on knock propensity and on the sensitivity of knock to thermal and fuel stratification, to oxygen dilution and to nitric oxide from exhaust gas recirculation... Read more →

As the first large vessel in the industry, the container ship Maersk Halifax has been converted into a dual-fuel vessel able to operate on methanol. The retrofit operation was conducted at the Zhoushan Xinya Shipyard in China over 88 days with completion at the end of October 2024. Following the... Read more →

The first 100,000-ton demonstration phase of a 500,000-ton green methanol production project in Alxa was recently launched in Inner Mongolia. The green methanol project is China’s first 500,000-ton-level project that synthesizes green methanol by using wind and solar power for the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen and combining it... Read more →

Maersk entered into a long-term bio-methanol offtake agreement with LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd. First volumes are expected in 2026 with full production expected at the end of the decade. The agreement will contribute to lowering GHG emissions from Maersk’s growing fleet of dual-fuel methanol container vessels. Bio- and... Read more →

MAN Energy Solutions has received multiple orders for MAN B&W G95ME-LGIM Mk 10.5 methanol engines to power a series of Very Large Container Vessels (VLCVs). The order brings the cumulative number of G95ME-C10.5-LGIM methanol engine orders to 95 at various yards in South Korea, China and Japan since the engine’s... Read more →

Advent Technologies announced significant performance breakthroughs for its Membrane Electrode Assembly (Advent MEA G2) technology. The Advent MEA G2 technology has already been provided for testing to select strategic partners, in the automotive and aerospace industries. It is being developed within the framework of L’Innovator, the company’s joint development program... Read more →

ZF and Farizon announced an expansion of their strategic partnership upon signing a Memorandum of Understanding at the IAA Transportation 2024. Under the theme of “Safe, Smart and Sustainable Journey to Farther Horizons”, this agreement aims to accelerate the industrialization of ZF’s advanced technologies for Farizon’s new energy vehicles. This... Read more →

X-Press Feeders, the world’s largest independent common carrier, launched its second green methanol-powered route, the Green Baltic X-PRESS (GBX). It is part of Europe’s first scheduled feeder network powered by green methanol. This expansion follows the successful launch of the Green Finland X-PRESS (GFX) in July and marks another milestone... Read more →

Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborating institutions have engineered a highly selective catalyst that can convert methane, a major component of natural gas, into methanol, an easily transportable liquid fuel, in a single, one-step reaction. As described in a paper just published in... Read more →

MAN PrimeServ—the after-sales brand of MAN Energy Solutions—has announced that, from 2025, it will offer a retrofit package for the conversion of conventional MAN four-stroke engines already in the field to dual-fuel methanol operation. Customers will initially be able to convert existing MAN 48/60 engines to the latest MAN 51/60DF... Read more →

Metafuels and PSI, the developers of a technology for sustainable aviation fuel compatible with existing aircraft, announced a CHF 4.4-million funding grant from the Swiss Government’s Federal Office of Energy to support the implementation and operation of a pilot facility based on Metafuels’ sustainable aviation fuel (e-SAF) technology (earlier post)—aerobrew—which... Read more →

Blue World Technologies successfully tested its 200 kW high-temperature PEM fuel cell module. The test was completed at the newly established test facilities in connection to the Blue Aalborg Factory, where the fuel cells for the system are produced. With an electrical efficiency of up to 55% when reaching a... Read more →

Glocal Green AS and Norwegian Hydrogen entered into a cooperation agreement for the development and establishment of hydrogen production in connection with Glocal Green’s planned bio-methanol plant. The hydrogen production will be organized into a separate jointly owned company. The bio-methanol will be produced from low-grade biological residual materials and... Read more →

Proman Stena Bulk, the joint venture between tanker company Stena Bulk and methanol producer Proman, formally christened Stena Prosperous during a ceremony at the Marina Bay Cruise Centre in Singapore. Stena Prosperous is the last of six vessels in Proman Stena Bulk’s joint venture fleet to be formally named, following... Read more →

Element 1 Corp and Ballard Power Systems have joined forces to accelerate the adoption of sustainable hydrogen energy solutions. Specifically, the joint effort successfully paired Ballard’s FCwave 200-kW fuel cell module with Element 1’s M/L18 hydrogen generator (235 kg hydrogen per day), producing high-purity hydrogen in the range of 0.7... Read more →

NGK INSULATORS, LTD. (NGK) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) jointly will develop two types of membrane dehydration systems, one for Bioethanol and e-Methanol, respectively. The goal is to realize low cost and to optimize efficiency of manufacturing processes for Bioethanol and e-Methanol to meet expected demand growth for clean... Read more →

Metafuels AG (earlier post), a Swiss aviation tech company, has signed an agreement with European Energy to set up a synthetic sustainable aviation fuel (eSAF) facility near Padborg in southern Denmark. The new facility is set to be constructed adjacent to a future Power-to-X facility from European Energy. The facility... Read more →

SunGas Renewables and C2X announced a strategic partnership and an investment by C2X in convertible preferred stock issued by SunGas. Together, SunGas and C2X aim to develop, own, and operate multiple green methanol production facilities in North America to increase the supply of sustainable fuels and advance global decarbonization of... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a catalyst material—cobalt phthalocyanine—that converts carbon dioxide into renewable fuels such as methanol. In a study published in the journal ACS Catalysis, U-M researchers report using cobalt phthalocyanine as a catalyst to convert carbon dioxide into methanol through multiple reaction steps. The... Read more →

FlagshipTWO, Sweden’s second large-scale production facility of green electrofuel (eMethanol), has received the environmental permit for its planned operations in Sundsvall, Sweden. The facility is developed by Liquid Wind and is one of the largest industrial investments to date in Sundsvall; the facility is expected to be ready for production... Read more →

Verde Clean Fuels, a renewable energy company focused on the development of commercial production facilities to convert syngas derived from diverse feedstocks into gasoline, announced that a consortium led by TDA Research and including Verde, has been awarded funding from the US Department of Energy (DOE) to complete a conceptual... Read more →

Topsoe plans to build in Chesterfield, Virginia a factory that will manufacture Solid Oxide Electrolyzer Cells (SOEC) (earlier post) that are essential to the efficient production of clean hydrogen and derivatives such as eAmmonia and eMethanol. Subject to Final Investment Decision (FID), this more than $400-million investment would mark Topsoe’s... Read more →

Seaspan Corporation (Seaspan), the leading independent maritime asset owner and operator, and Hapag-Lloyd, one of the largest container shipping lines in the world, have entered into a partnership agreement to retrofit and convert five (5) 10,000 TEU containerships powered by conventional S90-type engines to dual-fuel engines capable of running on... Read more →

MAN Energy Solutions has received an order for 3 × MAN 6L21/31DF-M (Dual Fuel-Methanol) GenSets capable of running on methanol in connection with the construction of a 7,990 dwt IMO Type II chemical bunker tanker. The dual-fuel engines will form part of a diesel-electric propulsion system on board the vessel... Read more →

MAN Energy Solutions and Svitzer have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) focused on the development of a methanol-fueled version of the MAN 175D engine, designated 175DF-M (Dual Fuel-Methanol). (Earlier post.) The MoU targets the finalization of a field-test agreement based on which a dual-fuel engine and plant equipment will... Read more →

Researchers in Taiwan have developed a performance-enhancing layer to improve the performance of direct methanol fuel cells. This layer is constructed by PDDA/sPPO bi-layers with Pt45-Ru55 deposited on carbon self-assembled on both sides of Nafion. An MEA with the performance-enhancing layer showed increased power density of 75.1%. A paper on... Read more →

MAN Energy Solutions and China Classification Society (CCS) signed a sub-agreement in line with the Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA) the two parties previously agreed in September 2023 in Beijing. The SFA, on ‘Decarbonization and Digitalization in the maritime industry’, is scheduled to last for five years. The new sub-agreement—the third... Read more →

A team at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) has compared the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) and methanol pathways for the production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) derived from renewable energy sources. The results, published in an open-access paper in the journal Fuel, show a very high carbon efficiency of the FT pathway... Read more →

Westport Fuel Systems announced a proof-of-concept project with a leading global supplier of power solutions for marine applications to test Westport’s High Pressure Direct Injection (HPDI) fuel system utilizing methanol for marine applications. The project, expected to start in the first quarter of 2024, will be fully funded by the... Read more →

Liquid Wind, together with partners Alfa Laval, Carbon Clean, Siemens Energy and Topsoe, launched the eFuel Design & Performance Center (DPC) in Hørsholm, Denmark. The DPC is intended to drive technological progress, strengthen production capacity and bring in-demand eFuels to market at scale. The shared eFuel DPC is the first... Read more →

Lake Charles Methanol II, LLC (LCM) plans to invest $3.24 billion to construct a new manufacturing plant that will produce low-carbon intensity methanol and other chemicals at the Port of Lake Charles, Louisiana. The company plans to use advanced auto thermal gas reforming technology and employ carbon capture and secure... Read more →

The partnership announced in March 2023 between BMW Motorrad Motorsport and NORDOEL has led to the development of a fuel aimed at reducing the environmental impact of racing. By integrating advanced technologies and sustainable production processes, a fuel has been developed that not only keeps engine performance but also significantly... Read more →

BASF process catalysts, a leading provider of innovative catalyst technology, announced a new collaboration with Envision Energy. The collaboration aims to develop further the conversion of green hydrogen and CO2 into e-methanol through an advanced, dynamic process design. Backed by their respective expertise, the two companies aim to optimize the... Read more →

Jan De Nul Group and ABC Engines (Anglo Belgian Corporation) announced their partnership for hybrid marine engines. Both companies signed the order for four 7,200 kW engines and one 1,800 kW engine that can run on (bio)diesel, HVO and methanol. These engines will ensure propulsion of the newest Jan De... Read more →

The world’s first large methanol-enabled container vessel has been named “Ane Mærsk” at a ceremony in the shipyard of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HD HHI) in Ulsan, South Korea. The vessel is named after Ane Mærsk Mc-Kinney Uggla, the Chair of the A.P. Moller Foundation and A.P. Moller Holding. Ane’s... Read more →

Ocean Network Express Pte. Ltd. (ONE) has signed Ship Building Contracts with Jiangnan Shipyard and Yangzijiang Shipbuilding for a total construction of twelve 13,000 TEU methanol dual-fuel container ships. Each shipyard will build six vessels; all are scheduled to be delivered from 2027. This significant milestone represents ONE’s inaugural fleet... Read more →

Fairway Methanol LLC, a US-based 50-50 joint venture between Mitsui & Co., Ltd. and Celanese Corporation, a global specialty materials and chemical company, has begun the production of methanol by using carbon dioxide captured from Celanese’s Clear Lake, Texas site. Fairway Methanol is expected to capture 180,000 metric tons of... Read more →

Researchers from Ghent University in Belgium have assessed the applicability of five different pressure-based knock metrics for use with methanol fuel in heavy-duty engines. Their findings, published in a paper in Fuel, highlight the need for dedicated, fuel-specific, knock threshold values. The heavy-duty industry typically uses a high cetane fuel... Read more →

The latest stats from DNV’s Alternative Fuels Insight (AFI) platform found that a total of 298 ships with alternative fuel propulsion were ordered in 2023—an 8% increase year on year. The year also saw methanol go mainstream, with a sharp increase in orders (138, 10.8% of all roders), edging it... Read more →

A.P. Moller-Maersk (Maersk) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the City of Yokohama and Mitsubishi Gas Chemical (MGC) focused on the development of green methanol bunkering infrastructure in Yokohama. Maersk’s 16,000 TEU green methanol-powered container vessels will be delivered beginning in 2024. Maersk is targeting net-zero emissions by 2040... Read more →