Norden buys into Danish-Indian biofuel scale-up to strengthen future supply

Danish shipping company Norden has acquired a minority stake in MASH Makes, a Danish-Indian biofuel scale-up which researches, develops and produces renewable fuels from biomass waste.

Norden sees the investment as a strategic partnership that will help secure access to renewable fuels, specifically bio-oil, at favourable pricing.

As a strategic partner, Norden’s role will be to help MASH Makes bring its bio-oil products to the marine fuel market and offtake biofuel for Norden’s fleet.

The production of MASH Makes’ first bio-oil product is in a late development stage and the partners expect to conduct the first trial onboard Norden vessels in early 2024.

Furthermore, the expectation is that MASH Makes can gradually ramp up its production and become a significant supplier to Norden’s fleet within the next three years in strategically important locations for decarbonising global tramp shipping.

Prior to this investment, Norden and MASH Makes have collaborated on the use of biofuels since 2021.

“We cannot rely solely on traditional offtake agreements with fuel suppliers to achieve decarbonisation 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.”

“With this investment, we are turning our attention to the next generation of biofuels and scale up consumption of biofuel,” added Adam Nielsen, Head of Logistics & Climate Solutions at Norden. “The benefit of bio-oil 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.”

“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.

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