Russia Recycling Used Cooking Oil To Make Marine Fuel

Russia’s state-owned oil and gas company Gazprom has teamed up with Russia's successor to McDonald's, Vkusno & tochka, to make marine biofuel produced using waste cooking oil, Reuters has reported. Gazpromneft-Marine Bunker, Gazprom’s bunkering business subsidiary,says it was the first company in Russia to feed a vessel with marine fuel blended with biofuel. Moscow says it remains committed to climate goals despite facing heavy sanctions following its war in Ukraine.

Last year, Gazpromneft-Marine Bunker sold over 200,000 tonnes of environmentally friendly marine fuel with sulfur content of less than 0.5%. This type of fuel is supplied to all the 35 Russian ports covered by the company.

“The company has developed and launched industrial production of low-sulfur marine fuel well in advance of MARPOL-2020 requirements coming into force. The product with a sulfur content of less than 0.5% is produced at the company’s Moscow and Omsk Refineries as well as at Gazpromneft-Marine Bunker’s fuel terminals,” Aleksey Medvedev, General Director of Gazpromneft Marine Bunker has revealed. According to Medvedev, the share of low-sulfur marine fuels now exceeds 60% of the company’s total sales over the three-year period.

Although fossil fuels dominate Russia’s current energy mix, the country is home to abundant and diverse renewable energy resources including wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass and solar. Practically all regions in the country have at least one or two forms of

renewable energy that are commercially exploitable, while some are rich in all

forms of renewable energy resources. According to the IEA, Russia’s volume of renewable energy with economic potential corresponds to about 30% of the country’s actual total primary energy supply. Some 179 TWh of Russia's energy production comes from renewable energy sources, out of a total economically feasible potential of 1823 TWh. About 16% of Russia's electricity is generated from hydropower, although less than 1% is generated from all other renewable energy sources combined.  Roughly 68% of Russia's electricity is generated from thermal power and 16% from nuclear power.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

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