As shipping faces growing pressure to decarbonise, a lack of long-term fuel demand remains one of the biggest barriers to scaling production of zero-emission fuels such as e-methanol and e-ammonia.
A new insight brief explores how innovative pooling of compliance credits could help address this challenge by aggregating demand, reducing risk, and creating the revenue certainty needed to unlock investment in new fuel production projects.
While the number of alternative-fuel-capable vessels continues to grow, many fuel production projects remain unable to reach a final investment decision due to a lack of long-term, bankable offtake agreements.
"Compliance pooling has already emerged as an important flexibility mechanism under FuelEU Maritime. The question now is whether it can evolve into a tool that helps unlock the long-term demand needed to scale zero-emission fuel production," said Femke Spiegelenberg, project manager at the Global Maritime Forum.
The brief finds that while existing pooling arrangements support the uptake of biofuels and bio-LNG, using pools to enable scalable zero-emission fuels will require longer-term commitments and greater price certainty to help bridge the gap between fuel producers’ and shipowners’ requirements. It also highlights green shipping corridors as promising environments for testing innovative pooling models and accelerating the uptake of zero-emission fuels.
Innovative compliance pooling for fuels facing offtake challenges was developed through consultations with shipowners, fuel producers, and green corridor stakeholders.
Read the full insight brief here.