News / BG Freight Line adds its 'greenest feeders yet' to its fleet

Photo: Peel Ports Group

Four new BG Freight Line feeder vessels will be able to burn biomethanol fuel, in addition to using an early form of onboard carbon capture.

The four 1,380 teu feeder vessels, built at Penglai Jinglu shipyard in China, feature a 12.5-MW scrubber, designed to filter particulate matter and sulphur, and also feature a carbon capture module.

The BG Green and BG Blue have already arrived in Europe, BG Red is off the coast of China and BG Orange has yet to be launched, according to AIS data.

“We understand the importance of implementing measures to reduce our impact on the environment, and we are doing this with our greenest ships yet,” said Koert Luitwieler, BG Freight Line CEO.

“This investment underscores our commitment to sustainability, and we hope that by pioneering eco-friendly solutions we can set a new standard for sustainable shipping,” he added.

BG has been experimenting with Value Maritime Filtree carbon capture systems since 2022. These use an active substance called amine, which passes through the exhaust and becomes saturated with CO2 molecules, effectively ‘washing’ a proportion of the CO2 from the exhaust and storing it in an onboard tank.

While such systems cannot control what happens to the carbon after it is removed from the ship, they are able to prevent a portion of ship exhaust emissions – as much as 30%, according to Value Maritime.

A problem for Filtree, and one that is common to all carbon capture systems, is that more fuel must ultimately be combusted, and more CO2 emitted, to provide the energy to run them – however, Value Maritime claims its amine-based protocol requires less energy than other carbon capture technologies.

Feeder lines like BG, Xpress Feeders and Samskip, have more motivation to introduce new low-emitting vessels than most, after the IMO introduced the Carbon Intensity Index (CII) that punishes the operating profile of feeders, which conduct many short voyages, spending a long time at berth and generally sail faster than giant 20,000 teu-plus ultra-large container vessels.