The maiden voyage of Danish shipping giant Maersk’s first ever dual-fuel methanol-ready ship will be powered by green methanol made from steam reformed biomethane — because the green hydrogen-derived methanol supply chain is not yet developed enough to see the vessel through the journey.
Maersk has inked a deal with Dutch green fuels and fertiliser producer OCI to supply green methanol for the voyage, which will be made from biomethane, or landfill gas, derived from organic matter in municipal solid waste.
This biomethane, certified to an International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) standard for biomass, is then heated up into a syngas (a combination of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbn dioxide) and synthesised into methanol, CH3OH — the same process used to produce standard ammonia from natural gas.
The container vessel — the first of 19 methanol-ready dual-fuel ships set for delivery to Maersk over the next three years — is due to set out from the Hyundai Mipo Dockyard in South Korea this summer for her first journey, stopping at a number of ports for refuelling along the route to Europe via the Suez Canal.
Advertised as the world’s first methanol-powered container ship, the vessel will arrive in Copenhagen in September, where it will be named — the name is rumoured to be “Laura Maersk” — and enter into service in the Baltic Sea.
Bio-methanol for the voyage will be supplied from OCI’s plant in Beaumont, Texas, close to where the company is building a 1.1 million tonnes-per-year blue ammonia plant. No further agreement has been reached to supply fuel for the vessel’s future voyages, but a spokesperson for OCI told Hydrogen Insight that the company hopes to demonstrate its bunkering expertise and keep the door open for future supply agreements.
The fuel is classified as green because the carbon molecule is derived from organic matter, rather than fossil fuels, however it does carry more emissions than e-methanol, also called green methanol, which is derived from renewable hydrogen and captured CO2.
OCI,
a significant hydrogen buyer, told
Hydrogen Insight that it was logistically impossible to supply renewable hydrogen-derived methanol at all locations along the vessel’s route, noting that the supply is simply not available at the moment.
Once subsidies for green hydrogen production kick in over the next few years, bringing more production on line, green-hydrogen-derived methanol could be more readily available, but experts have warned that there could be a more general
green methanol supply squeeze over the next decade as several sectors attempt to decarbonise at once.
Denmark's Orsted
has taken the final investment decision on a 50,000-tonnes-per-year green methanol plant in Sweden, powered by a 70MW electrolyser, that will come into operation in 2025.
And Iberdrola
has unveiled plans to build a green methanol plant in Bell Bay, Australia, with a 240MW electrolyser, capable of producing 300,000 tonnes of green hydrogen-derived methanol per year.
Maersk, which has said it plans to
shift to ammonia fuel once the technology becomes available, hopes to slice its per-container emissions in half by 2030 by adopting methanol-fuelled voyages early.
There is a theoretical limit on the amount of bio-methanol that can be produced, as it depends on a ready supply of bio-methane from organic sources, however OCI estimates there is enough biogenic carbon dioxide in the US alone from paper, ethanol and power plants to make 100 million tonnes of bio-methanol.
But even though a spokesperson for OCI told Hydrogen Insight that bio-methanol is more reliable than green H2-derived equivalents, the company is nevertheless diversifying its production mix to take advantage of the superior decarbonisation credentials of green methanol made from renewable electricity.
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