Arklow Shipping and DEME are the newest to be added in the Green Maritime Methanol consortium, aiming to review the possibilities for renewable Methanol, to be used as a maritime transport fuel. The results and information that will be concluded from the work packages will be provided to a number of methanol-based ship designs, and their technical, economic and logistical feasibility will be evaluated.
A leading shipbroker remarked to a recent conference panel session that for more shipowners to commit to LNG as fuel required much more support from the energy majors whose cargoes they might carry. In fact, Mr Christopher D. Chatterton, Chief Operating Officer of the Methanol Institute states that the majors have already come out in support of LNG as fuel.
Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK Group), the Japanese shipping company, has announced the delivery of a methanol carrier, Takaroa Sun, equipped with a two-stroke dual-fuel engine technology that enables the vessel to be powered by methanol.
Switzerland-based ship manager Proman Shipping and Swedish tanker shipping company Stena Bulk announced a joint venture, collaborating to co-own two new vessels and promote methanol as a marine fuel.
Jon Anders Ryste, Senior Consultant, Environment Advisory, DNV GL presents a recent study, whose ambition is to assess the commercial and operational viability of alternative marine fuels. The study analyzed six fuels, having LNG as its base for comparison.
The Methanol Institute announced that it has welcomed the launch of two new dual-fueled tankers capable of operation using clean-burning Methanol. Namely, the 49,000dwt product tankers Mari Couva and Mari Kokako were named on August 16.
Marinvest, the Swedish ship-management company, announced that its ‘Mari Jone’ and ‘Mari Boyle’, two of the first vessels fueled by dual-fuel ME-LGI (Liquid Gas Injection Methanol) engines operating on methanol, have each passed 10,000 operating hours on the alternative fuel.
DNV GL published the revised ‘Assessment of selected alternative fuels and technologies in shipping’, to provide decision support for investments in ships, for the following five to ten-year period. In the report, DNV GL has identified LNG, LPG, methanol, biofuel and hydrogen as the most promising solutions.
Experts from the Greek shipping market gathered in Athens, Greece, in late May, for the third in a series of global seminars designed to educate the industry on the potential of methanol as a marine fuel. The seminar was organised by consultancy Sea Commerce and supported by the Methanol Institute.
Floating solar, methanol islands on the ocean could be able to produce enough energy to allow CO2-neutral global freight traffic, according to a group of researchers from ETH Zurich, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Empa, the Universities of Zurich and Bern and the Nowegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.
