Maersk: new fleet and green fuels
In total, Maersk now has 19 vessels on order, including a 2,100 TEU capacity feeder vessel to be launched in 2023, and 18 large ocean-going vessels of 16,000-17,200 TEU capacity, scheduled for delivery in 2024 and 2025.
In addition, Maersk reported that it continued to invest in its transition to green fuel in 2022, ordering six additional dual vessels that can sail on green methanol.
According to the company itself, ensuring the availability of green fuels on a large scale is the biggest challenge to Maersk’s decarbonization ambitions.
Accordingly, the company argues that nine strategic partnerships were announced in 2022 with memoranda of understanding that lay the groundwork for securing some 5 million tons of green methanol by 2030.
These partnerships are key to scaling up new fuels in terms of production capacity, technology and business model innovation.
Maersk’s emissions from ocean vessels under its financial control (Scope 1) and upstream and downstream emissions from ocean-related activities in its value chain (Scope 3) are the company’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
There are two key levers to mitigate Maersk’s ocean-related emissions: improving fuel efficiency and transitioning to vessels operating on green fuels.
Green fuels are defined as fuels or energies that, compared to fossil fuels, have low (65-80% lower) or very low (80-95% lower) greenhouse gas emissions over their life cycle.
Maersk
The company has made substantial progress over the past decade in improving fuel efficiency, reducing emissions intensity by about 43% between 2008 and 2020.
Despite the reduction in fuel consumption, maintaining the momentum in carbon intensity in 2022 proved difficult due to post-pandemic port congestion and capacity shortages, which strained and slowed global supply chains.
Maersk continued to invest to achieve its ambitious goals. The company signed nine green fuel partnership agreements in 2022, aiming to source at least 750,000 tons of green fuel per year by 2025.
In September 2022, Maersk announced the purchase of six new methanol-enabled green vessels, adding to the 13 already in the order book. The first methanol-enabled green vessel will make its maiden voyage in 2023.
