The Week in Alternative Fuels
Here are some of the key developments in alternative bunker fuels from the past week.
PHOTO: Port of Rotterdam Authority chief executive Allard Castelein, Mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb, Singapore's Minister of Transportation and Trade Relations S. Iswaran, and Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore chief executive Quah Ley Hoon. Port of Rotterdam
The world's two top bunkering hubs, Singapore and Rotterdam, announced plans to establish what could become the world’s longest green corridor by 2027.
The ports will work with different stakeholders to resolve challenges related to cost, availability and safe usage of alternative fuels such as methane, hydrogen, ammonia and methanol.
Energy and shipping giants like MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM, Ocean Network Express, PSA International, Shell and BP are onboard as partners to help put the plan into action.
The Singapore-Rotterdam green corridor is the latest in a series of recently announced green corridors. In March, the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping (the Center) launched a project to establish a green corridors network spanning Hamburg, Gdynia, Roenne, Rotterdam and Tallinn. The plan is to build bunker infrastructure in these northern European ports and spur uptake of low- and zero-carbon fuels on voyages between them.
The Center then announced an agreement with Chile’s Ministry of Energy in April, to set up a network of green corridors to transport goods in and out of the South American country. Chile has been brought forward as a country with great potential for zero-carbon fuels production as it can tap into its abundant sources of renewable energy, especially solar and wind power generated in its Magallanes and Antofagasta regions.
Green corridors can pave the way for whole value chains for zero-carbon marine fuels and accelerate first-mover initiatives, the Center’s head of energy and fuels Torben Nørgaard said last month.
Also hitting the headlines this week, French marine engineering company GTT said it had taken orders for a record 38 LNG-fuelled vessels in the first half of this year. These vessels will be delivered by 2024-2026.
Data from shipping classification society DNV suggests that the global LNG-fuelled fleet has expanded by nearly 60% over the past two years, with 304 vessels now in operation.
The Port of Rotterdam records LNG bunker sales and noted steady growth quarter on quarter until this year. Sales have since plunged as soaring gas prices have incentivised shipowners with dual-fuel engines to burn more conventional bunker fuels instead.
Here are the top five stories in alternative fuels this week:
Singapore-Rotterdam to become longest green shipping corridor
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and the Port of Rotterdam Authority have agreed to set up the world’s longest green shipping corridor and will work with a range of players across the value chain to build systems and infrastructure.
Singapore and Rotterdam, the world's biggest and second biggest by bunker sales volume, aim to have ships powered by low- and zero-carbon fuels sailing in the corridor by 2027.
They will also form a coalition of shippers, fuel suppliers, and other companies, which will work to resolve challenges related to costs, availability and safe usage of alternative fuels such as synthetic methane, hydrogen, ammonia and methanol.
To improve vessel efficiency and safety, the two entities will develop a “digital trade lane” to share data, electronic documentation and standards related to shipping.
They will work with the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation and the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero-Carbon Shipping.
Other industry partners include BP, CMA CGM, the Digital Container Shipping Association, Maersk, MSC, Ocean Network Express, PSA International and Shell.
These partners will help to raise investments and start bunkering pilots for low- and zero-carbon fuels along the corridor, the two port authorities said in a joint statement.
“By bringing together parties across the supply chain along one of the world’s biggest trade lanes, we can enable carriers to switch to zero-carbon fuels and speed up the transition to more sustainable shipping”, Port of Rotterdam Authority’s chief executive Allard Castelein said.
GTT took orders for 38 LNG-fuelled vessels in H1 2022
French marine engineering company GTT says several Chinese and Korean shipyards placed these orders on behalf of global shipping companies.
With the new orders, GTT has already surpassed its previous record of 27 LNG-fuelled vessels taken across last year. The vessels are scheduled for delivery between 2024-2026.
The company has also received 88 orders for LNG carriers during the period, beating the last year’s record of 68 orders.
The first half of this year has been promising for LNG as a marine fuel, with strong demand in Europe, GTT’s chairman and chief executive Philippe Berterottière says.
The need for LNG infrastructure and carriers is expected to grow in the coming years, he adds.
A total of 312 LNG-fuelled vessels are in operation globally this year, according to classification society DNV. An additional 77 LNG-fuelled vessels are on order for delivery this year, and another 155 vessels are LNG-ready.
The number of LNG-fuelled vessels on order for delivery by 2028 is much higher at 504.
GAC joins Norway’s HyValue project to develop hydrogen bunkering
Shipping agent GAC Norway says it will share its expertise and knowledge of low- and zero-carbon marine fuels to develop storage, handling and bunkering technologies for hydrogen in Norway.
HyValue is an initiative by the Norwegian government to fast-track the country's transition to low-emission fuels. The Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE) is leading the project which is sets out to build knowledge and technologies to make hydrogen-fuelled bunkering and shipping possible.
One of the key objectives of HyValue is to develop mass production of hydrogen and ammonia, while minimising energy loss and overall costs. They also aim to create safe and resilient hydrogen transportation.
In a recent study, shipping classification society DNV highlighted limited cargo shipping capacity for hydrogen as a bottleneck to scaling its distribution and use.
GAC Norway says that large-scale storage and handling facilities are required to make hydrogen more widely available as it needs to be regasified from a cryogenic liquid form.
The Norwegian government will contribute NOK15 million ($1.5 million) annually towards the HyValue project until 2030.
Global bunker supplier GAC Bunker Fuels has set an ambitious target to completely stop selling conventional oil-based bunker fuels by 2030.
NYK Line, Astomos Energy join GCMD’s bio-bunker test project
Biofuel will be supplied to power a very large LPG carrier owned by Japanese shipping firm NYK Line and chartered to Astomos Energy Corporation for a trial run.
NYK Line did not specify which kind of biofuel, or the proportion of biofuel to conventional fuel in a blend, that will be used for this trial.
But it regards biofuels as a promising option to decarbonise shipping emissions without altering existing ship engines and bunker infrastructure.
The biofuels project was launched by the Singapore-based Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) and other 18 industry partners. It involves 12 vessels that will bunker B30 biofuel blends in Singapore, Rotterdam and Houston.
As part of the project, shipping firms will conduct trial operations using biofuels and provide data on their usage to GCMD.
NYK Line tested pure B100 biodiesel on its vessel last month. The biodiesel was produced by Finnish refiner Neste and delivered by energy firm Itochu Enex.
Norwegian firm Spar Shipping has also recently completed a trial of B100 biofuel on its bulk carrier during a voyage from the Netherlands to Turkey. The stem was delivered by Dutch biofuel supplier GoodFuels.
Wah Kwong explores carbon capture systems on bulk carriers
Hong Kong-based Wah Kwong Maritime Transport Holdings has partnered with French classification society Bureau Veritas and Shanghai Qiyao Environmental Technology to study carbon capture and storage (CCS) units on existing ships.
The study will focus on two types of bulk carriers in Wah Kwong's fleet, and look to answer whether CCS can help the vessels meet the International Maritime Organisation's (IMO) Carbon Intensity Index (CII) targets for 2030.
CII data collection will begin from next year, and from 2024 it will be mandatory to calculate CII for ships annually. Ships need to achieve a rating of ‘C’ or better, based on their fuel consumption data from the preceding year.
Shanghai Qiyao Environmental Technology, a subsidiary of Shanghai Marine Diesel Engine Research Institute (SMDERI), has designed a custom CCS unit for Wah Kwong. Bureau Veritas has reviewed the design.
According to Bureau Veritas, the CCS unit can capture up to 85% of carbon emissions in exhaust gas from ships. But it has yet to approve it.
"The transition to a greener shipping industry is critical,” Bureau Veritas’ marine and offshore chief executive for North Asia & China Alex Gregg-Smith says.
Citing International Energy Agency (IEA) data, he argues that carbon capture technology can contribute significantly towards emissions reduction from shipping.
IEA data shows that 40 million mt of carbon dioxide was captured with carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) last year. This was mostly from onshore industrial projects.
Meanwhile, in its global energy review for 2021, the IEA found that global carbon dioxide emissions from energy combustion and industrial processes rose 6% on the year. At 36.3 gigatonnes, carbon dioxide emissions recorded its highest ever level.
