ABS releases advisory on methanol bunkering

The American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) has released Methanol Bunkering: Technical and Operational Advisory, providing guidance on methanol as a marine fuel.

The new advisory provides the maritime industry with insight into the challenges of bunkering methanol and strategies to address them.

A key component of the methanol value chain and the overall scalability of the fuel will be the ability to bunker methanol, either by truck-to-ship, ship-to-ship or land storage tank/terminal-to-ship.

The publication guides the technical and operational challenges of the supplier to the receiving vessel including critical design issues, regulatory compliance, safe practices, areas of operational processes to consider, training and safety aspects.

“As the class provider for the world’s largest methanol-fueled vessel and with numerous methanol-based projects underway, ABS has unrivalled insight into the adoption of methanol as a marine fuel. Numbers of methanol-fueled vessels are growing rapidly and ABS is focused on supporting its safe adoption by the industry, which is why we are proud to offer this publication to support owners, operators and yards with bunkering challenges related to operations, design and training,” said John McDonald, ABS President and COO.