Asahi Glass Corporation announced it has successfully used 100% ammonia fuel to produce architectural glass over two days of testing at its Yokohama Technical Center, with NOx emissions below environmental thresholds. The news follows successful ammonia co-firing tests to produce cement clinker by Mitsubishi UBE Cement Corporation.
This week, we explore three new onboard systems: the Mitsubishi Ammonia Supply and Safety System (MAmmoSS®), Singapore-based C-LNG Solutions’ new ammonia low flash point fuel supply system, and a new NOx emission mitigation system developed by Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering and Hyundai Heavy Industries.
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.
Topsoe will supply its ammonia loop technology to the million tonne per year renewable ammonia project in Newfoundland. Crown lands application approval means that project developers World Energy GH2 have now secured full land capacity for both initial and potential expansion phases for the project.
German energy company EnBW has acquired a 10% equity stake in the SkiGA project, as well as securing long-term offtake rights to the renewable ammonia produced at the Norwegian facility. SkiGA will be completed in 2026, producing 100,000 tonnes per year of renewable ammonia.
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.
Mitsui & Co., Mitsui Chemicals, IHI Corporation and the Kansai Electric Power Company will explore the establishment of a hydrogen & ammonia supply chain based in Osaka. Ammonia fuel will be used to decarbonise electricity generation, and cracked to provide a feedstock for other industrial processes like steel-making. In South Korea, a similar partnership is evolving between LOTTE and Air Liquide. You can learn more about the emerging nexus between ammonia cracking and steel-making at our upcoming annual conference in Atlanta, USA.
The pair will jointly develop a 1.3 million tonnes per year renewable ammonia production plant in the Gopalpur Industrial Park in Odisha, northeast India. From the adjacent port, ammonia will be shipped domestically, and exported to key global markets.
Germany’s updated national hydrogen strategy forecasts that hydrogen demand in the country will skyrocket by 2045, including new demand for hydrogen and ammonia power generation. An auction process ending in 2026 will spur the construction of 4.4 GW of “sprinter” power plants around the country, generating electricity from pure hydrogen or ammonia. This will support the continued integration of renewable energy into Germany’s national grid.