Rules and fuels

The International Maritime Organization 's (IMO) Marine Environmental Protection Committee is holding its 81st session (MEPC 81) this week. A major focus of its discussions have been the IMO's mid-term measures to help shipping meet interim greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets.

These mid-term measures have been split into two main categories: an economic measure to put a price on GHG, and a technical measure to categorise the GHG intensities of various fuels and technologies. We don't yet know what the measures will be, but we do know that the IMO expects them to be adopted by 2025 and implemented by 2027.

One important consideration for mid-term measures is whether they will follow or deviate from the EU's regional FuelEU Maritime and EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) regulations. And since the EU ETS cap-and-trade system for CO2 emissions is already in place for EU-linked voyages, will it influence the way that the IMO devises its economic measure? ?

“I would always continue to call for global regulations for a global sector. And I have been very open, including with the European Union, the European Commission, that I expect that we will only end up with one global regulation,” IMO’s Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez?told?ENGINE at a press conference at IMO headquarters.

“We develop the global ones. The EU has developed a regional one. If anything, theirs needs to align with global regulations, not the other way around,” Dominguez said.

MEPC 81 was preceded by a working group meeting in which the majority of IMO member states?backed?a flexible GHG fuel standard (GFS) linked with the IMO’s interim targets, University Maritime Advisory Services (UMAS) said.

As an economic measure, most nations?favoured?a GHG pricing mechanism with a universal price, such as a levy, and suggested that prices should start at $20-150/mt for CO2-equivalent emissions, UMAS said. 35 IMO member states called for a GFS to be calculated on a well-to-wake basis.

Alternative fuels are expected to be crucial to whether shipping achieves its decarbonisation goals. Since e-ammonia, e-methanol and e-LNG have zero-emission potential, they are projected to do much of the heavy lifting in reducing GHG emissions if they can get produced and consumed at scale.

These e-fuels currently have varying levels of technological readiness. While ocean-going dual-fuel vessels have been running on LNG for years, and more recently methanol, few have taken on ammonia. In a historic milestone this week, Australian mining company Fortescue ?tested?ammonia as a bunker fuel on one its vessel in Singapore. Diesel was used as a pilot fuel, though it did not reveal the ammonia-to-diesel blend ratio.

Hydrogen firm ABEL Energy will build a 400,000 mt/year green methanol plant in Australia's?Townsville City?to meet future bunkering demand. The facility will mainly supply green methanol to Singapore for bunkering. Abel Energy will also build methanol bunkering infrastructure in the Port of Townsville.

A consortium led by Japanese shipping line Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL) will study an e-methanol?supply chain, including marine transport of CO2. Finnish shipping firm Wasaline plans to run its?hybrid ferry?on e-methanol sourced from Swedish electrofuel developer Liquid Wind 's FlagshipTHREE plant in Ume?, Sweden.

Sweden’s Erik Thun Group wants to run LNG-fuelled ships on?e-methane. It will purchase the e-methane from producer Electrochaea ’s Danish subsidiary BioCAT Roslev. Green hydrogen will be processed into e-methane by combining it with biogenic CO2 captured during biogas production at the Rybjerg Biogas plant in Denmark.

Swedish energy infrastructure firm Nordion Energi and Finnish oil refiner and biogas supplier ST1 will build a biogas?liquefaction?plant connected directly to a gas network in western Sweden. Liquefied bio-methane produced from the biogas will eventually be bunkered directly to ships through a pipeline.

By Konica Bhatt

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