<\/p>\n
To say there is uncertainty regarding ‘future fuels’ in the maritime sector is a big understatement. With numerous options evolving, we asked William Stoichevski to produce the ‘future marine fuel manifesto’ for the May 2022 edition of\u00a0<\/em>Maritime Reporter & Engineering News. Here we look at methanol.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In just 12 years, the EU has moved from compelling the use of LNG to renouncing it in favor of battery power and then putting LNG partly back on the mantle of clean fuels. In Norway, during that time, Oslo\u2019s industrialists heavily promoted biodiesel for cars before climbing aboard the all-electric bandwagon and forcing generous financing for Teslas.<\/p>\n Despite the social engineering, there is now greater certainty on decarbonizing ship\u2019s engines. Under the IMO sulfur cap, ship owners have strived to comply by choosing lower-sulfur fuels or scrubbers, depending on price, says Christos Chryssakis, DNV business development manager and a decarbonization expert.<\/p>\n \u201cFuels have been available. (Not having them) was one of the concerns before 2020. This has not been the case,\u201d he says. Low-sulfur HFO and MGO were made available by refineries once at odds with shipowners over who\u2019d pay the lower-sulfur tab, producer or end-user.<\/p>\n Back in 2019, Chryssakis says, scrubbers were installed on larger vessels based on an assumption that low-sulfur fuels would be pricier. It was thought that 10 to 15 percent of marine fuel consumption would, by 2022, be high-sulfur fuels with installed scrubbers.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened in 2020 is that after a couple of months, we actually saw that the charter age for ships with scrubbers was higher. Then we got COVID and oil prices dropped dramatically in just a few weeks. That meant that the price differential between high- and lower-sulfur fuels was not there. Ships with scrubbers were still using high-sulfur fuel, but it wasn\u2019t making the case for more scrubber installations.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, with a European war underway, fuel oil prices and the price differential between high and low-sulfur is up again. \u201cScrubbers are very attractive again, but I don\u2019t thing we\u2019ll be seeing more scrubber installations. It\u2019s just that for those who have scrubbers, they have an incentive to keep on using them for as long as possible.\u201d So, scrubbers are attractive today, just not in newbuilds, \u201cbecause people have a different focus, and that is decarbonization.\u201d<\/p>\n The IMO\u2019s Energy Efficiency Design Index, Phase 3, will soon enforce a 50 percent carbon-intensity cut (over 2008 levels) on any newbuild of a large containership and, by 2025, a 30 percent carbon-intensity reduction on any newbuild. So, from sulfur to carbon.<\/p>\n The properties of some future fuels. Source: NCE Maritime Cleantech<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Methanol (CH3OH)<\/strong> Engine maker MAN is working on a number of engine types, and 2023 should see one that can run on methanol or diesel. Company exec, Thomas Hanssen, says 2021 saw \u201ca massive order uptake of ships not using bunker as fuel\u201d, or at least not as an only fuel. He says dual-fuel has come to stay \u201cfor all segments,\u201d especially for powering smaller-bore gen sets and supplying electricity to avoid the dreaded \u201cblack ship at 2 a.m.\u201d.<\/p>\n Methanol\u2019s combustion performance \u201cmight not be best-in-class\u201d, he says, but it does allow priority to be given the electrical supply in a MAN-made engine. MAN execs note that four-stroke RPMs are \u201c10-times faster\u201d with methanol, so you need more fuel in the combustion chamber \u2014 and a larger chamber.<\/p>\n Challenges with Methanol<\/strong> Methanol might need more space than LNG for plant and storage, up to two-and-a-half-times more space than with fuel oil, or about what LNG needs. But, apart from room, \u201cThe main challenge is how do you produce green methanol, and if we\u2019re going to have enough green methanol when we need it, and of course at what price,\u201d the DNV expert says, a nod to the stated aim of getting methanol from renewables. Those ordering vessels with methanol-capable engines today are \u201ctrying to secure green methanol production, and what we see in general is that potential producers are trying to understand what the demand will be. So, I think it\u2019s the chicken and the egg story we had with LNG\u2014producers are not certain about the demand, the ship owners are not certain about the supply.\u201d<\/p>\n DNV confirms, however, that ship owners and potential suppliers of methanol are talking volumes and filling locations. Owners know methanol will be pricier but that it\u2019ll be inline with other greener fuels. In some segments, like container shipping, charterers are seen paying extra knowing that, \u201cIn the medium and long-term, we\u2019re going to have regulations that will ask for less carbon in fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n In August 2021, Maersk ordered eight green methanol fueled ocean-going vessels to be delivered from Q1 2024. They also invested in WasteFuel, another California start-up making greener bio-methanol from waste. Waterfront Shipping also declared CH3OH \u201csafe and reliable\u201d before ordering six clean product tankers of 84,000 dwt.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n maritime professional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To say there is uncertainty regarding ‘future fuels’ in the maritime sector is a big understatement. With numerous options evolving, we asked William Stoichevski to produce the ‘future marine fuel manifesto’ for the May 2022 edition of\u00a0Maritime Reporter & Engineering News. Here we look at methanol. In just 12 years, the EU has moved from …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/30158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
As 2021 ran its course, Class began seeing \u201cincreased interest in methanol,\u201d and OEMs began looking at its energy density of 36,700 MJ\/m3, a close MGO match<\/p>\n
Chryssakis says methanol has benefits, especially for crews. \u201cFrom among all of the alternative fuels that we have, it\u2019s the one that\u2019s easiest to handle,\u201d he says, adding that \u201cthe CAPEX or investment for a vessel is relatively low because you don\u2019t have cryogenic or pressurized tanks\u201d.<\/p>\n