Hamburg Süd and its Swedish customer Electrolux have continued to finance a sustainability project that will reduce sulfur dioxide emissions in ports.
During its layovers in Manzanillo (Mexico), Callao (Peru), Iquique and Puerto Angamos (Chile) between March 11 and 24, 2018, the Santa Catarina — a 7,114 TEU containership — will voluntarily use cleaner marine gas oil (MGO) instead of standard heavy fuel oil (HFO) to operate its auxiliary engines and boilers.
Both of these must be running in port to supply the ship with electricity and heat.
In the four ports — unlike those in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, and the North American Emission Control Areas (ECAs) — switching fuel from HFO to MGO is not mandatory.
Hamburg Süd and Electrolux, which launched the sustainable fuel project pilot phase in the spring of 2017, have found that the significantly lower sulfur content of MGO results in a sulfur dioxide emission decrease of over 95% for the Electrolux cargo.
While Electrolux is bearing the additional costs for the MGO, Hamburg Süd is assuming the extra operative expenses related to planning and switching fuels.
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Dr. Arnt Vespermann, CEO of Hamburg Süd, said: “When it comes to sustainability, reducing emissions in the interest of environmental protection plays an important role for Hamburg Süd.
“With this project, we are showing at the same time that Hamburg Süd is employing innovative solutions to meet the unique desires of our customers, in collaboration with them.”
Bjorn Vang Jensen, Vice President, Global Logistics at Electrolux, said: “Sulfur dioxide emissions are a major environmental issue in some of the communities around port cities where we ship our products.
“With this partnership, we are showing how the industry can move faster than legislation to improve the air quality in ports, and we hope more companies will get on board.
“This will support our ambition to improve the environmental footprint in the transportation chain, which is one of the goals in Electrolux sustainability strategy ‘For the Better’.”
