The Singapore headquartered liner company Swire Shipping announces that three of its vessels serving the South Pacific have made the switch to B24 and B30 2nd generation biofuel blends.
The company says that this voluntary move supports Swire Shipping’s long-term sustainability ambitions and will provide more options to customers looking to reduce their emissions.
The three vessels involved in the biofuel programme are Apia Chief and Tonga Chief on the Pacific Weekly Express (PWX) service running direct calls from Southeast Asia to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and Fiji, and Kokopo Chief on the
East Timor (ETS) service which provides direct service every 10 days between Singapore, Dili, Darwin and Surabaya.
The mentioned vessels will bunker B24 in Singapore in Q2 2025 enroute to the South Pacific and subsequently transition to B30.
“At Swire Shipping, we are committed to reducing our environmental footprint and contributing to a more sustainable future. The island nations of the South Pacific are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and this move marks an important step in our ongoing efforts to reduce emissions and support a cleaner, greener shipping industry,” says Jeremy Sutton, Chief Executive Officer of Swire Shipping.
The new biofuel programme brings together Swire Shipping and its sister company, Argent Energy, a waste-based biofuel producer, achieving synergies within the Swire Group to meet the shared goal of delivering sustainable energy solutions to customers. The collaboration includes an agreement with BP, a supplier of biofuel in Singapore, to explore new feedstocks of marine fuel.
“This successful biofuel programme highlights what can be achieved through strong international partnerships, all united by the common goal of decarbonisation. It has been especially rewarding to work alongside our sister company and other partners to accelerate the use of waste derived biofuels. We look forward to continuing our collaborative efforts, with sustainability at the centre of all we do,” says Louise Calviou, Argent Energy’s Chief Executive Officer.
With the launch of its biofuel programme, Swire Shipping will also launch a carbon abatement programme, Voyage to Zero, to help customers decarbonise their supply chains with the participating customers to receive certificates of emission savings, verified by an independent third party, towards the reduction of their Scope 3 emissions.
Susana Germino, Chief Sustainability & Energy Transition Officer at Swire Shipping, says that “Swire Shipping has ambitious voluntary targets for reduction of emissions by 2027. The biofuel programme is a significant milestone in our decarbonisation roadmap, and with Voyage to Zero we are able to offer greater support to customers looking to decarbonise their supply chains. In this first year, the impact of the programme will be comparable to removing 2,700 cars from the road.”
