Methanol fuel: preparing ships for a green-fuels future

Ms Aymer analysed how regulations impact maritime fuel choices, with IMO and the European Union the main drivers of shipping’s transition.

Regulations broadly work on two levels, with legislation influencing fuel standards and the price of greenhouse gas emissions. These include the EU’s FuelEU Maritime and emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) and similar planned regulations from IMO, which are all expected to encourage shipowners to adopt low-carbon or zero-carbon fuels in the long term.

As Ms Aymer said the idea is to enable the fuels “with the lowest abatement costs to become the cheapest.” She said, “Carbon pricing and fuel standards are being phased in” which would enable ships to use different fuels if available, or owners to trade credits, or borrow against a future surplus.

“Owners can use large volumes of low-cost fuels with marginal emissions savings, such as LNG, use small volumes of high-cost fuels with much lower emissions, or pay to pollute,” said Ms Aymer. She spoke about total cost of ownership to compare fuels and the corresponding FuelEU and EU ETS penalties.

Reward factors could also be introduced by the EU and IMO, to make e-fuels more commercially viable and competitive.

“The EU provides introductory pathways for IMO regulations, so people get used to compliance and paying,” said Ms Aymer. “IMO’s decisions will be critical, but carbon tax is not a panacea. The fuel standard will drive the adoption of alternative fuels.”

Ship design and retrofits

IHC’s Mr Mestemaker said vessel owners need to build vessels ready to use alternative fuels as this reduces the cost of a later conversion to methanol.

He sees methanol as a key future fuel for offshore support vessels, workboats, dredgers and naval ships due to their operating profiles, compact size, space limitations for fuel storage and operational flexibility.

A fuel’s energy density dictates how much needs to be stored on board vessels for operations between bunkering. “We are transitioning to fuels with less energy density that need more storage tank space, and we need to deal with low flashpoint fuels or gases, with various levels of toxicity,” said Mr Mestemaker.

Methanol has some advantages over other fuels, except diesel, such as its relatively high energy density, low toxicity and being able to dissolve in water.

“Owners need to decide in the design phase and prepare ships for the future,” said Mr Mestemaker. “As it is difficult and expensive to retrofit ships to methanol, so preparing vessel as they are built means less hassle in a drydock for the conversion.”

Ships have an operating life of 25-30 years, which means those built this decade could still be operating beyond 2050 when the shipping industry is aiming to be net zero.

“We need to prepare ships to run on a mixture of fuels. Investments now will mean less costly retrofits in the future,” said Mr Mestemaker.

Webinar poll results

Attendees were asked to vote on a series of poll questions during the webinar. Here is a summary of the results.

Which segment of the shipping industry will see the greatest uptake of methanol as a marine fuel by 2050?

Container ships: 58%

Tankers (chemical/product carriers): 20%

Cruise vessels: 18%

Dry bulk vessels: 4%

What do you see as the most likely future for the use of methanol (bio and e-methanol) as a bunker fuel?

Utilised in niche use cases with limited exposure across shipping sectors: 12%

Cross-sector adoption but use concentrated geographically: 33%

Broad global adoption from mid-2020s: 5%

Broad global adoption from mid-2030s: 40%

Broad global adoption from mid-2040s: 10%

What do you think will be the most important factor in encouraging low-emissions fuel uptake in Europe?

Demand from customers or cargo owners: 15%

FuelEU Maritime: 29%

EU ETS: 15%

IMO mid-term measures: 25%

Policies by national governments: 16%

When do you expect green methanol to be financially attractive as a fuel?

Now (2025): 1%

2030: 15%

2035: 25%

2040: 17%

2045: 15%

2050: 5%

Second half of this century: 11%

Never: 11%

Which two fuels do you believe will dominate the marine industry in 2050?

LNG (with methane slip mitigation) and e-methanol: 36%

E-ammonia and hydrogen: 3%

Biofuels and synthetic fuels (e-fuels): 7%

LNG (with methane slip mitigation) and e-ammonia: 16%

Biofuels and e-methanol: 7%

Hydrogen and synthetic fuels (e-fuels): 8%

E-methanol and e-ammonia: 23%

(source: Riviera Maritime Media)

On the panel of Riviera’s Methanol’s moment: navigating shipping’s fuel shift webinar were (left to right): Methanol Institute senior advisor on marine affairs Kjeld Aabo, Royal IHC senior specialist for research and development, Benny Mestemake and UMAS International senior consultant Deniz Aymer.