Norden Buys Stake in Biofuels Company Mash Makes
Danish shipping company Norden on Wednesday announced it has acquired a minority stake in Mash Makes, a Danish-Indian biofuel scale-up, which researches, develops and produces renewable fuels from biomass waste.
Under the deal, Norden—which operates a fleet of tankers and bulk carriers—secures access to renewable fuels, specifically biooil, at favorable pricing, the company said, noting it will also benefit from future renewable biooils once developed.
“We cannot rely solely on traditional offtake agreements with fuel suppliers to achieve decarbonization at the necessary speed that climate change requires,” said Norden CEO, Jan Rindbo. “We need to be a greater part of the supply chain, to both ensure significant volumes and attractive prices that can make Norden competitive in offering low emission freight solutions to our customers.”
In 2018, Norden became one of the first shipping companies to test 100% biofuel on a large oceangoing vessel when it ran trials on its 37,000 dwt Handysize product tanker vessel Nord Highlander. Norden and Mash Makes have collaborated on the use of biofuels since 2021.
“With this investment, we are turning our attention to the next generation of biofuels and scale up consumption of biofuel,” said Adam Nielsen, Head of Logistics & Climate Solutions at Norden. “The benefit of biooil is that it can be used in existing vessel technologies and bridge the gap between transitioning from fossil fuels to carbon free fuels, which requires new vessel technologies.”
Norden said it will now aim to help Mash Makes bring its biooil products to the marine fuel market and offtake biofuel for Norden’s fleet. The production of Mash Makes’ first biooil product is in a late development stage, and Norden said it expects to conduct first trials on board its vessels in early 2024. As Mash Makes ramps up its production, it will become a significant supplier to Norden’s fleet within the next three years.
“We are excited and humbled by the fact that Norden—a uniquely capable purchaser in the biofuel space—has seen sufficient potential in our platform to not only invest, but also to enter a strategic offtake- and potential production site financing agreements with Mash. We believe that this partnership will greatly accelerate the continued scale up of our business and put us on track for our gigaton range greenhouse gas reduction target,” said Jakob Andersen, CEO of Mash Makes.
