Pro­man has an­nounced that it has tak­en de­liv­ery of the first of its new gen­er­a­tion methanol-pow­ered ships

Pro­man Ste­na Bulk, a joint ven­ture be­tween lead­ing glob­al methanol pro­duc­er Pro­man and one of the world’s largest tanker ship­ping com­pa­nies Ste­na Bulk, yes­ter­day con­firmed that the first methanol-pow­ered new build ves­sel un­der its part­ner­ship has been de­liv­ered and is prepar­ing for com­mer­cial op­er­a­tion.

A state­ment from Pro­man said the 49,990 DWT Ste­na Pro Pa­tria is the first of six state-of-the-art, IMOI­IMeMAX dual-fu­el mid-range (MR) tankers be­ing built at Guangzhou Ship­yard In­ter­na­tion­al Co Ltd (GSI) in Chi­na for Pro­man Ste­na Bulk and Pro­man.

The Ste­na Pro Pa­tria will leave GSI Ship­yard to bunker in Ul­san, South Ko­rea and will ar­rive in T&T for her nam­ing cer­e­mo­ny lat­er this year.

“This is sig­nif­i­cant for Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­ing the first such nam­ing cer­e­mo­ny for a methanol new­build ship to be host­ed in-coun­try,” the state­ment said.

It added that Ste­na Pro Pa­tria is named in ho­n­our of Den­nis Patrick, an in­te­gral mem­ber of the Pro­man fam­i­ly and long-stand­ing for­mer CEO of Pro­man’s sub­sidiary Methanol Hold­ings (Trinidad) Ltd (MHTL), who passed away in 2019.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment the ves­sel will run on methanol, rep­re­sent­ing Pro­man Ste­na Bulk’s com­mit­ment as part of the ship­ping in­dus­try’s sus­tain­able fu­els path­way.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, with an ex­pect­ed con­sump­tion of 12,500 tonnes of methanol ma­rine fu­el per an­num, the Ste­na Pro Pa­tria will be a low-emis­sion ves­sel, elim­i­nat­ing lo­cal pol­lu­tants in­clud­ing SOx and par­tic­u­late mat­ters, cut­ting NOx emis­sions by 60 per cent and re­duc­ing CO2 emis­sions ver­sus con­ven­tion­al ma­rine fu­els.

The state­ment said the de­liv­ery of the Ste­na Pro Pa­tria rep­re­sents an im­por­tant mile­stone for Pro­man Ste­na Bulk, not­ing that it is a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward as the joint ven­ture con­tin­ues to sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of methanol as a proven ma­rine fu­el and the role it can play as part of glob­al ship­ping’s ur­gent tran­si­tion to a more sus­tain­able fu­ture.

David Cas­sidy, CEO of Pro­man al­so not­ed, “The de­liv­ery of the Ste­na Pro Pa­tria rep­re­sents a ma­jor mile­stone for the suc­cess of our joint ven­ture with Ste­na Bulk, as well as send­ing an im­por­tant mes­sage to the mar­ket – that methanol is a re­li­able and avail­able ma­rine fu­el that can re­duce glob­al ship­ping emis­sions in the short, medi­um and long term.

“The ves­sel’s state-of-the-art fu­el con­sump­tion and en­gine tech­nol­o­gy are im­por­tant steps to­wards more sus­tain­able ship­ping; it will be vi­tal as new low emis­sion fu­els emerge to al­so fo­cus on en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy.”

Erik Hånell, pres­i­dent and CEO of Ste­na Bulk said it is on­ly through such col­lab­o­ra­tion that cli­mate goals can be met.

Ani­ta Ga­jad­har, MD of Pro­man Ship­ping, Mar­ket­ing and Lo­gis­tics added that the de­liv­ery is just the be­gin­ning of the low-emis­sion methanol tran­si­tion for the com­pa­ny’s own ves­sels, and mov­ing for­ward, for third-par­ty ship­ping com­pa­nies too.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, be­ing a pi­o­neer in the petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try, T&T has a re­mark­able op­por­tu­ni­ty to ben­e­fit from this de­vel­op­ment as a lead­ing pro­duc­er of methanol, adding that its ex­ist­ing Point Lisas plants and in­fra­struc­ture are well-po­si­tioned to en­able emis­sions re­duc­tion tar­gets across the mar­itime sec­tor.

Two fur­ther ves­sels, the Ste­na Pro Ma­rine and Ste­na Promise are al­so due for de­liv­ery lat­er this year.