In vessel news this week:

• Samsung Heavy Industries’ ammonia-powered, ultra-large ammonia carrier design has been granted AiP by Korean Register.
• Pherousa Green Shipping’s new fleet of six Ultramax vessels will be developed alongside partner OSM Thome.
• And Avance Gas has triggered the option of two mid-sized LPG/ammonia carriers, noting growth in global seaborne ammonia trade.

Expected to become commercially available in 2025, WinGD’s X-DF-A ammonia powered engines will be fitted on Samsung Heavy Industries’ newbuild vessels. Eastern Pacific Shipping expects its ammonia powered Newcastlemaxes and VLAC fleet to be delivered from 2026 onwards, after signing a series of agreements with MAN Energy Solutions and other key partners.

Samsung Heavy Industries and Danish organisation Seaborg have signed a new agreement to develop floating nuclear power plants. The partners have identified P2X projects producing hydrogen and ammonia fuel as key applications for the 800 MW vessels. This follows a report released in January, where UK-based CORE POWER suggests floating nuclear power to produce offshore ammonia can create a network of strategically-located refueling points to service a wide range of maritime transport, with particularly promising applications in the US.

Five ammonia vessel updates this week:

1. An ammonia/liquefied CO₂ carrier concept design from Mitsui O.S.K. Lines & Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

2. Approval in Principle for an ammonia-fueled car carrier designed by China State Shipbuilding.

3. Approval in Principle for the MS Green Ammonia.

4. An MoU between three members of the Castor Initiative to design & construct two Very Large Crude Carriers.

5. A concept design for up to four types of ammonia-ready, LNG-fueled vessels (ARLFV) from NYK Line.

Two announcements this week: i) Samsung Heavy Industries and Wärtsilä have agreed to jointly to develop new-build vessels with 4-stroke, ammonia-fueled auxiliary engines; and ii) Bureau Veritas has awarded Approval in Principle to Hyundai Heavy Industries and KSOE for their new, ammonia-fueled vessel design.

Last week we presented the second episode in our monthly webinar series: Ammonia Energy Live. Every month we’ll explore the wonderful world of ammonia energy and the role it will play in global decarbonisation - with an Australian twist. This episode we welcomed Sammy Van Den Broeck, VP Project & Portfolio at Yara Clean Ammonia. Sammy was invited to give his thoughts on the key challenges and opportunities in the global ammonia transition, and explain to us why Australia is so important to Yara's future clean ammonia plans. Interviewing Sammy were Jacinta Bakker (Research Fellow in the MacFarlane Laboratory at Monash University) and Allison Gwilt (Senior Project Engineer, Future Fuels at Origin Energy).

Two recent announcements show Singapore emerging as a center for development of ammonia as a maritime fuel. In both cases, multi-party coalitions, with Singaporean connections, are focusing on ground-breaking work.

Welcome to the Ammonia Wrap: a summary of all the latest announcements, news items and publications about ammonia energy. In this week's wrap: HyDeal Ambition, new marine tankers, fuel forecasts & SOFC developments, a new technical briefing on power generation, UNSW leads research in P2X, GWs of green ammonia in Denmark, Norway and Chile, green ammonia in the Orkneys, new government focus on ammonia in South Africa, and India to make green ammonia production mandatory?

In November 2019, MAN ES published a technical paper describing the design and performance of its two-stroke green-ammonia engine. The paper also quietly announces the intentions of MAN ES to exploit ammonia energy technologies in a new business case, Power-to-X (PtX, "the carbon-neutral energy storage and sector coupling technology of the future"). In other words, MAN is moving into green ammonia fuel production.