RFA adds support to legal challenge against EU Maritime Fuel Regulation

The association said the regulation effectively banned the use of renewable, crop-based marine fuels as a tool for decarbonising the maritime sector by arbitrarily assuming crop-based biofuels like ethanol had the same lifecycle carbon emissions as fossil-based marine fuels.

“The FuelEU Maritime regulation is unlawfully biased against crop-based biofuels and it harms ethanol producers around the world by denying them access to an emerging low-carbon fuel market,” RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper said in a statement on 29 March.

“The regulation is entirely inconsistent with other programmes, like the Renewable Energy Directive, in which the EU has confirmed the low-carbon benefits and sustainability of crop-based biofuels.”

In addition to impacting biofuel trade opportunities with European partners, Cooper said the regulation would hold back US producers from selling low-carbon fuels to maritime shippers in the USA.

“Because the regulation also applies to ships arriving at EU ports, it will affect the fuel choices made by EU-bound ship operators when they refuel outside the EU.

“In this way, the regulation directly discourages [the] development and use of low-carbon marine fuels here in the USA.”

The RFA petition – filed on 29 March - supports a challenge brought by ePURE, a trade association representing European ethanol producers, and one of Europe’s leading ethanol producers Pannonia Bio. Their application seeks to annul the relevant provisions of the FuelEU Maritime Regulation, which was adopted by the EU in 2023.

The global shipping industry had identified ethanol, green methanol and other renewable fuels as potential alternatives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from the maritime sector, the RFA said, adding that its members had set a target of reaching net-zero carbon emissions for ethanol by 2050 or earlier.