Heinrich Wegener joins Global Ethanol Association to advance marine fuels

Heinrich Wegener & Sohn Bunkergesellschaft M.b.H., founded in 1929, on June 30 joined the Global Ethanol Association, bringing a German bunker trader into the effort to make ethanol a marine fuel. The family-owned company has supplied marine fuels and lubricants worldwide for more than 50 years, with operations from Hamburg, Antwerp, Gibraltar and Hong Kong.

Heinrich Wegener holds DIN EN ISO 9001 certification, in place since 1994, and lists sustainability and carbon certification on its website. The Global Ethanol Association launched publicly in September 2025 as an independent, non-profit group headquartered in Switzerland, and its first flagship program, the Marine Fuel Sector Initiative, aligns supply, demand, regulation and investment for ethanol in shipping.

In April 2025, the International Maritime Organization approved a Net-Zero Framework for shipping that combines mandatory emissions limits with greenhouse-gas pricing and is targeted for implementation in 2027. A climate-ethanol paper put maritime shipping’s annual fossil-fuel use at about 300 million tonnes, including more than 200 million tonnes burned by larger vessels under IMO jurisdiction.

WinGD joined GEA as a founding member, and its ethanol research dates back to 2014. The Swiss marine power company plans to launch the first ethanol-fuelled two-stroke marine engine in 2026, with deliveries for newbuild and retrofit applications expected in 2027.

The Indian Federation of Green Energy signed an MoU with GEA in December 2025 to promote ethanol as a sustainable green fuel, with marine applications as the main focus. Vale plans the world’s first ethanol-powered ocean-going vessels from 2029, with potential emissions cuts of up to 90% depending on the ethanol type. Maersk also tested a 50/50 ethanol-methanol blend on Laura Mærsk after an initial E10 trial.