Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line)

In this week’s maritime ammonia news:

• Hyundai Heavy Industries, Lloyd’s Register and Korea National Oil Corporation have signed a new agreement to jointly develop an ammonia floating storage and regasification unit, or FSRU.
• KSS Line and Samsung C&T will cooperate to establish a clean hydrogen/ammonia transportation service, powered by alternative fuels.
• In Japan, K Line has announced ammonia will underpin its decarbonisation strategy to 2050, with AiP granted for a new Newcastlemax bulk carrier design.
• And the first of two CCU ammonia shipments have reached Ulsan from Saudi Arabia, with importer Lotte Fine Chemical leading development of a clean ammonia supply chain in the Yellow Sea.

Eastern Pacific Shipping will lead development of an ammonia-powered, dual-fuel gas tanker. The carrier will be built by Hyundai Heavy Industries, registered under the Singapore national flag, classed by ABS, and will be the first vessel fitted with MAN Energy Solutions’ G60 two-stroke dual-fuel ammonia engine. As EPS steadily scales up its engagement with maritime ammonia, another high-profile consortium is accelerating a bunkering study in Singapore.

Chief executives of major corporations are now talking about ammonia energy. This represents another crucial step up the learning curve for clean industry: knowledge about ammonia's potential has successfully spread from the R&D department to the executive suite. This is the difference between development and deployment. The fertilizer industry saw this in 2018, when the CEOs of first movers like Yara and OCP announced green ammonia pilot plants. These latest announcements come, however, from the shipping and power sectors — far bigger industries, with no existing ammonia business — and they focus on the use of green ammonia: for fuel and for profit.