Key Singaporean safety study releases report

By Julian Atchison on October 20, 2022

Click to download the new report, Ammonia as a Marine Fuel – Bunkering, Safety and Release Simulations from NTU’s website.
Click to download the new report, Ammonia as a Marine Fuel – Bunkering, Safety and Release Simulations from NTU’s website.

Following their two-year study, a consortium including Nanyang Technical University (NTU), the Singapore Maritime Institute, ASTI and ABS has released a long-awaited report into safety considerations for ammonia bunkering. Ammonia as a Marine Fuel – Bunkering, Safety and Release Simulations is available to download from NTU’s website. It explores a range of hypothetical ammonia bunkering scenarios, and what impact accidental release would have on the surrounding area. The findings are particularly relevant for Singapore, where GCMD & DNV intend to deploy an ammonia bunkering demonstration by 2025.

Key safety findings: highest-risk scenarios, mitigation measures to develop and current knowledge gaps

  • ammonia toxicity is of the utmost concern during ammonia bunkering.
  • leakage from the rupture of connecting hoses or pull-away incidents is one of the most common likely causes of the loss of containment for ammonia bunkering.
  • catastrophic hose rupture will release ammonia rapidly into the environment, causing danger to the personnel in the surroundings.
  • using the 3% lethality footprint as an indicator, the impact of accidental release reaches a maximum of 1.3km in ship-to-ship bunkering, and 400m in shore-to-ship bunkering.
  • for ship-to-ship bunkering, the maximum impact distance is larger during the day than at night. The reverse is true for shore-based scenarios.
  • development of effective mitigation measures for accidental release (including physical validation) is critical. Especially in Singapore, where land and sea space is scarce.

The report also sets out the current knowledge gaps in establishing ammonia as an alternative maritime fuel:

Comparisons of conventional fuel & ammonia bunkering (Table 3.2), from Ammonia as a Marine Fuel – Bunkering, Safety and Release Simulations (Maritime Energy & Sustainable Development (MESD) Centre of Excellence (CoE), 2022).
Comparisons of ammonia handling as a cargo & ammonia bunkering (Table 3.3), from Ammonia as a Marine Fuel – Bunkering, Safety and Release Simulations (Maritime Energy & Sustainable Development (MESD) Centre of Excellence (CoE), 2022).
Click to enlarge. To demonstrate knowledge gaps, comparisons of conventional fuel & ammonia bunkering (Table 3.2), and comparisons of ammonia handling as a cargo & ammonia bunkering (Table 3.3), from Ammonia as a Marine Fuel – Bunkering, Safety and Release Simulations (Maritime Energy & Sustainable Development (MESD) Centre of Excellence (CoE), 2022).

Join us at our upcoming conference in Phoenix, Arizona, to hear more on the new report. Chenxi (Chase) Ji from the American Bureau of Shipping will walk our audience through the report’s key findings, and reflect on the immediate next steps for establishing ammonia as a future maritime fuel.