LH2 carrier completes 9,000-km voyage transporting liquefied hydrogen

The 9,000-km voyage between Australia and Japan was undertaken by the world’s first liquefied hydrogen (LH2) carrier Suiso Frontier, to demonstrate the viability of long-distance maritime transport of liquefied hydrogen. The project saw the LH2 carrier sail from Japan to Port of Hastings, where it was loaded with blue hydrogen produced from Australia’s unused brown coal from the Latrobe Brown Coalfields, using carbon capture to collect the CO2 produced as a by-product in the process for sequestration underground. Once liquefied and loaded on board, Suiso Frontier returned to Japan.

The project is supported by a Japanese consortium called the HySTRA joint venture. Partners in the project are Iwatani Corp, Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI), Shell Japan, Electric Power Development Co (J-POWER), Marubeni Corp, Eneos Corp, and K-Line. Japan’s national research and development agency NEDO supported the project. The joint venture has developed technologies to produce and transport large volumes of liquefied hydrogen, conducting demonstration tests between Japan and Australia to establish processes around the safe loading, offloading and storage of hydrogen. Insights from the demonstration voyage will also guide the development of international safety standards and codes for transporting liquefied hydrogen.