The Danish-based Norden buys a share in biofuel production firm in a race to decarbonise.
Denmark’s Norden announced today it has acquired a minority stake in MASH Makes, a Danish-Indian biofuel scale-up, which researches, develops and produces renewable fuels from biomass waste.
The investment is a strategic partnership, where Norden secures access to renewable fuels, specifically biooil, at favourable pricing.
Norden and MASH Makes have prior to the investment collaborated on the use of biofuels since 2021.
Norden was in 2018 one of the first shipping companies to successfully trial 100% biofuel on a large ocean-going vessel.
As a strategic partner, Norden’s role will be to help MASH Makes bring its biooil products to the marine fuel market and offtake biofuel for Norden’s fleet.
The production of MASH Makes’ first biooil product is in a late development stage and a first trial onboard Norden vessels is expected in early 2024.
Furthermore, the expectation is that MASH Makes can gradually ramp up its production and become a significant supplier to Norden’s fleet within the next three years in strategically important locations for decarbonising global tramp shipping.
“We cannot rely solely on traditional offtake agreements with fuel suppliers to achieve decarbonisation at the necessary speed that climate change requires,” said Norden CEO, Jan Rindbo, adding “we need to be a greater part of the supply chain, to both ensure significant volumes and attractive prices that can make Norden competitive in offering low emission freight solutions to our customers.”
Adam Nielsen, head of logistics and climate solutions at Norden notes that “the benefit of biooil is that it can be used in existing vessel technologies and bridge the gap between transitioning from fossil fuels to carbon free fuels, which requires new vessel technologies.”
