World’s first LH2 carrier completes historic voyage

Departing Kobe, Japan, on Christmas Eve, Suiso Frontier, the world’s first liquefied hydrogen (LH2) carrier, completed its historic voyage, arriving at Hastings Port, Victoria, Australia, and opening a new chapter in marine transportation.

For its maiden voyage completed on 20 January, the carrier was loaded with liquefied hydrogen at the Hy touch Kobe liquefied hydrogen cargo-handling demonstration terminal.

HySTRA – the Technology Research Association for CO₂-free Hydrogen Supply Chain Promotion Organisation – reports that after conducting a liquefied hydrogen cargo-handling test and various equipment inspections in Australia, the ship will be loaded with liquefied hydrogen and return to Kobe between mid and late February. The vessel can carry about 75 tonnes of LH2 in one trip.

Part of the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) pilot project, the ship will carry liquefied ‘blue’ hydrogen, produced from Australia’s Latrobe Valley brown coal and biomass, which will be gasified and trucked to Hastings, cooled to -253°C and liquefied. CO₂ emissions produced as a by-product will be captured and collected for sequestration in the CarbonNet project’s offshore reservoir in Gippsland. Once liquefied and loaded on board, Suiso Frontier will sail some 9,000 km to Japan.

“The HESC project is key to both Australia and Japan and our hydrogen industries,” says Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. “In addition to our government’s support for HESC, we have recently established the Australian Clean Hydrogen Trade Program and committed up to A$150M to the first round that will focus on clean hydrogen supply chains with Japan,” he adds.

The Prime Minister says the HESC project demonstrates the benefits of co-operation between the two countries, which struck the “Japan-Australia Partnership on Decarbonisation through Technology” in 2021.

“The HESC project puts Australia at the forefront of the global energy transition to lower emissions through clean hydrogen, which is a fuel of the future,” says Prime Minister Morrison.

Suiso Frontier’s successful maiden voyage triggered additional investment by Australia, which announced A$7.5M (US$5.2M) to support the next A$184M (US$128.8M) pre-commercialisation phase of HESC. Additionally, it committed A$20M (US$14M) for the next stage of development for the CarbonNet project.

This funding is contingent on additional commitments from the Victorian and Japanese Governments, as well as HESC business partners KHI, J-Power, Iwatani, Marubeni, AGL Energy and Sumitomo Corp. The Japanese part of the project is also being supported by Shell, ENEOS and K-Line.

“The HESC project is key to both Australia and Japan and our hydrogen industries”

In the commercial phase, the HESC projects expects to produce 225,000 tonnes of carbon-neutral LH2. Lessons learned from the pilot project over the next two years will provide the basis for commercialisation of the HESC project.

Australia is investing more than A$1.3Bn (US910.2M) to accelerate the development of its hydrogen industry, including A$464M (US$325M) to develop clean hydrogen industrial hubs in regional Australia, including a potential hub in the Latrobe Valley.

As the world’s largest supplier of LNG and second largest exporter of coal to Indonesia, Australia is a leading supplier of fossil fuel to Asia and Japan. However, as part of its national hydrogen strategy and to adhere to the climate goals of the Paris agreement, Japan wants to displace fossil fuel use with hydrogen in transportation, power generation, industry and other sectors to reach its ambitions of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Projects like HESC and CarbonNet are vital to Japan and the Australian economy in the global clean energy transition, and to understanding the technical, operational, safety and commercial challenges of hydrogen. Hydrogen is clean energy that does not emit CO₂ when burned. The use of hydrogen is expected to expand worldwide, and efforts are being made to create a supply chain to realise a hydrogen society. Low-carbon blue hydrogen, produced for the HESC project, is seen as a valuable steppingstone to green hydrogen, which is produced with renewable power.