The IMO reports that significant progress has been made on the development of draft interim guidelines for the safety of ships using ammonia as fuel. Approval of the final guidelines is scheduled for December 2024, with a series of key regulatory updates due in the coming years.
The Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance has launched a tender process for container shipping powered by zero-emissions fuels. The twenty-member Alliance includes major global consumer brands, and is seeking bids to meet an aggregate demand of 600,000-plus TEUs over 3 years, with a book-and-claim approach to be used for fuel certification. The demand-side initiative comes as a new report from UMAS and the Getting to Zero Coalition finds the window of opportunity for the global shipping industry to meet its 2030 goals is closing.
The US Department of Energy has selected seven hydrogen hub applications to proceed to a funding negotiation stage, with $7 billion to be split between them. Fertiliser, power generation, industrial decarbonisation and heavy vehicle transport are all target markets for the new hubs, with locations to range from the Gulf Coast, Appalachia, the Midwest to the Californian coast.
The Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation and the Society for Gas as a Marine Fuel will collaborate on new guidelines for ammonia as a marine fuel. The work will help build towards ammonia bunkering demonstrations in Singapore.
Having witnessed the extreme climate events this northern hemisphere summer, it was heartening to see momentum for new renewable projects on display in Sao Paulo, where I spoke at a recent conference. In the Netherlands, an important decision on the Porthos project will - hopefully - create space for infrastructure development.
New analysis from the Global Maritime Forum has found that the cost gap between ammonia fuel and conventional fuel could be closed as early as 2026 for their new NoGAPS vessel. A series of levers need to be pulled to fully finance NoGAPS and similar vessels (such as long-term charters), but the authors report favorable deals should be readily available. The authors also map out three commercial pathways for NoGAPS to operate, the easiest being exclusive bunkering on the US Gulf Coast.
Hydrogen Certification 101, the Hydrogen Council’s new report, provides a helpful summary of key certification terminology and concepts. It is the latest report to advocate for mutual recognition as a solution to inconsistency in energy policy, while also delving into practical measures to support the fundamental design principles of certification schemes.
