HGK Shipping welcomes the approval for HVO100

HGK Shipping is supporting the German government’s decision to approve the alternative fuel - HVO100.
Europe’s largest inland waterway shipping company believes that this provides an opportunity to press ahead with decarbonising this mode of transport in the medium term.
European inland waterway shipping companies face high investment costs for new drive systems for vessels
The sector with approximately 13,000 vessels is not large enough for the manufacturers to be able to initiate or call for appropriate developments in this field.
HGK Shipping believes that fuelling vessels with HVO can represent a sensible interim solution for inland waterway shipping.
However, the company is calling for subsidies for the increased costs of the fuel until market mechanisms have regulated the price for HVO100 to match the level of traditional diesel. Steffen Bauer, CEO of HGK Shipping, said: “The go-ahead provided by the government in Berlin for its use is an important incentive for mobility in Germany – and this also applies to inland waterway shipping, which is very climate-friendly anyway. That’s why we’re going to use HVO100 straightaway.”
HGK Shipping has already purchased quotas of the biofuel to be able to exclusively operate parts of its fleet with HVO100 in future. No technical modification is necessary to use the fuel, which is obtained from non-fossil sources, even for fairly old drive systems.
This opens the possibility for the sector to make further use of older shipping fleets without any significant investments and still make an important contribution to decarbonising European inland waterway shipping by achieving savings of up to 90% in its CO2 emissions.