Japan targets ammonia bunkering potential with ship order

Japan general trading company Itochu Corporation has signed a shipbuilding contract for a 5,000 cbm ammonia bunkering vessel with Sasaki Shipbuilding Company, with delivery slated for 2027.

The ship owner, Clean Ammonia Bunkering Shipping, is a wholly owned special purpose company of Itochu. Tanks will be manufactured by Izumi Steel Works, with financing provided by The Hiroshima Bank.

The project targets the commercialisation of ammonia bunkering in Singapore and expansion of similar business model to major maritime transportation points around the world, including Spain (Strait of Gibraltar), Egypt (Suez Canal) and Japan.

The large-scale integrated project shows how Japan is stepping up ship-to-ship ammonia bunkering as shipowners strive to decarbonise operations.

Shipping line NYK and shipyard and engineering firm Seatrium, through technology company LMG Marin, attained approval-in-principle from ClassNK for an ammonia-fuelled bunkering vessel in February.

As a highly toxic substance, safety is a key concern around the handling and transfer of ammonia.

But it is appealing as it requires less energy than hydrogen to be liquefied, and less storage space.

Yet ammonia bunkering largely remains an unknown entity, despite the projects that are moving forward.

A recent paper on Science Direct notes there is a strong need to develop a model “to quantitatively evaluate the system performance of bunker supply chains, considering the supply and demand dynamics.”