Hear more from the authors of the Ammonia at Sea report: an analysis of everything currently known about ammonia’s behaviour in the aquatic environment, plus the potential impacts of the use of ammonia as a marine fuel.
Our last episode of Maritime Ammonia Insights featured new technologies being developed for the emerging offshore ammonia production industry. We explored SBM & Imodco’s jetty-less export terminal, H2Carrier’s P2X Floater vessel and CyaNH3’s FPSO hull design, as well as the unique opportunities on offer for floating ammonia producers.
WinGD and CMB.TECH will team up to develop & deploy ammonia-fueled, two-stroke engines in ten Capesize bulk carriers, to be built at the Beihai shipyard in China. The pair will continue development of WinGD’s dual fuel X72DF design, which was first announced in December 2021. Delivery of the vessels is due in 2025-6.
In maritime ammonia updates this week:
Topse & Mintal Hydrogen will develop a dynamic, renewable ammonia plant in Baotou, China. Similar to Topsoe’s project in Skovgaard (Denmark), the electrolyser plant in Baotou will be directly connected to renewable energy generation, with production to begin in 2025.
In this week’s maritime ammonia news:
COP27 saw an exciting number of green shipping corridor announcements. But the question remains: how do we actually build them? Earlier this year, the Maersk McKinney Møller Centre for Zero Carbon Shipping launched a Feasibility Phase Blueprint, setting out some key assessment criteria to consider. At the recent annual AEA conference in Phoenix, we took a group of sixty participants through the criteria, asking how and where the ammonia sector should engage.
For our December episode of Ammonia Project Features, we welcomed Alzbeta Klein (International Fertilizer Association) and Tarek Hosny (Fertiglobe). Our speakers discussed a pathway forward for Egypt’s fertilizer industry to decarbonize, presented the newly-commissioned Egypt Green Hydrogen project, and outlined the unique advantages (and challenges) of developing renewable production projects in Egypt.
Ricardo, Lloyd’s Register and the Environmental Defense Fund have used extensive modeling to assess the environmental impacts of large-scale ammonia spills in a variety of maritime scenarios. The study concludes that large-scale spills will have a high impact on certain environmental settings, and in particular fish species. The report also indicates that ammonia is less likely to spread & persist in the environment compared to a spill of conventional maritime fuel, and in some cases will pose less of a threat to certain species. More considerations need to be worked through, including health risks to a ship’s crew.
The US and Norway launched the Green Shipping Challenge in Sharm el-Sheikh this month. The Challenge encompasses more than forty different announcements & initiatives, including ammonia fuel production in Namibia, ammonia-powered cargo shipping in Finland, ammonia-powered pilot vessels in Norway's Green Shipping Programme, and a host of new green corridor projects. A trio of new reports have also provided an assessment of progress to date in green corridor development, and suggested key next steps.