Rio Tinto and bp embark on one year biofuel trial

Bp’s marine biofuel will be trialled on Rio Tinto’s RTM Tasman vessel on Transatlantic and Atlantic-Pacific routes. The results are expected to help Rio Tinto’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions from its marine fleet and inform its future biofuel strategy.

In a statement, Laure Baratgin, Rio Tinto head of commercial operations, said: “Sustainable biofuels have the potential to be an important transition fuel on the way to net-zero marine emissions and we are pleased to be working with bp to carry out this long-term trial.

“A longer-duration trial will provide important information on the potential role and wide scale use of biofuels, and aligns with our goals to reduce marine emissions across our value chain and support efforts to decarbonise the maritime industry.

“Our ambition is to reach net-zero emissions from shipping of our products to customers by 2050 and to introduce net-zero carbon vessels into our portfolio by 2030. We know that we won’t meet these ambitions alone and along the way will need to work with capable and experienced companies such as bp.”