Penfield Marine, Macquarie Group Execute Carbon Neutral Voyage
Tanker operator Penfield Marine and Macquarie Group’s Commodities and Global Markets division announced the execution of Penfield’s first carbon-neutral voyage in a collaboration that will enable Penfield Marine to offer environmentally differentiated freight products to its customers.
The structure achieves carbon-neutral freight by retiring carbon offsets sufficient to cover the carbon footprint of an entire voyage, including emissions associated with the vessel’s ballast leg, positioning the vessel to perform the voyage, the laden passage and all in port load and discharge operations. Penfield said it believes that this is the first carbon-neutral freight offering from a freight pool operator globally.
The voyage that Penfield has offset was performed by the Seaways Hatteras, a vessel owned by International Seaways. The vessel loaded one million barrels of crude oil in Brazil for delivery to multiple ports in Southeast Asia, including Singapore and Malaysia, completing operations on June 24, 2021 UTC. The ballast leg from Singapore to Brazil was also offset.
The carbon offsets, identified, sourced and retired by Macquarie, were from multiple Verra-registered projects, including the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve project in Indonesia that protects tropical peat swamp forest and that is within the United Nations’ SDG 14: Life Below Water, which has as its objective to conserve and sustainably use oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development. The remainder of the offsets were from similarly high-quality Verra Projects including a Brazilian forest conservation-related project. Macquarie also arranged for the carbon accounting and verification using its partner, UK-based CarbonChain.com, which specializes in commodity lifecycle emissions analysis. The carbon accounting calculations are being independently verified by SGS, the world’s leading testing, inspection and certification company.
“We are very enthusiastic about the offset portfolio and appreciate Macquarie’s leadership and insight into developing this offering for our tanker pools. The completion of this first carbon neutral voyage has been an excellent collaboration with our founding Suezmax pool member, International Seaways, and we see this as just the beginning. We look forward to continuing this effort on a platform basis with the pools that we operate,” commented Penfield’s CEO Tim Brennan. “Penfield believes that this represents an impactful, practical, and immediately executable pathway towards decarbonization in the shipping industry, which overall will take significant time and capital. Our industry is at the dawn of a new era and Penfield looks forward to working with Macquarie, its pool partners and charterers to help drive the industry towards a decarbonized future.”
“This collaboration with Penfield is a testament to the relationship Macquarie has with Penfield and the commitment that both organizations have to driving decarbonization and positive change for the industry,” said Scobie Mackay, Managing Director in the Macquarie’s Commodities and Global Markets business.
