In focus: The pursuit of low-carbon business prospects

When it comes to energy transition-related developments across the offshore energy sector, this week’s focus was on making vessels greener by switching to cleaner fuels, low-carbon strategies, green hydrogen, and building a sustainable future for the marine environment.

Similar to the last week’s recap, several new projects and initiatives pushing for the development of new types of vessels and fuels in an effort to reach the global decarbonisation goals appeared in the headlines this week.

Belgium-based shipowner Exmar this week inked an agreement with Canadian fertilizer company Nutrien to develop and build a low-carbon, ammonia-fueled vessel. The collaboration aims to significantly reduce Nutrien’s maritime transportation emissions and enable the commercial development of an ammonia-fueled vessel as early as 2025.

Nutrien has been actively pursuing the development of low-carbon ammonia for more than a decade. At its Geismar, Louisiana facility, the company employs carbon capture and sequestration technology to reduce the carbon intensity of its ammonia for use as a maritime fuel.

When it comes to vessels used in the offshore wind sector, the demand for offshore support vessels (OSVs) is expected to grow with the growing investment in the sector.

This is why CSM Energy and Hydrus Engineering have recently entered into a partnership to assess and retrofit OSVs working in the offshore wind industry to turn them into hybrid vessels powered by both battery and fuel.

They believe that, due to this growing demand, retrofitting existing vessels will be far quicker and much more cost-effective than building greener OSVs from scratch.

“The offshore wind market is driven by moving away from fossil fuels and, as such, the green profile of the stakeholders involved is critical”, said Lambros Nakos, Partner at Hydrus Engineering.

Speaking of fossil fuels and the sector’s decarbonisation efforts, oil major Chevron this week revealed the creation of a new dedicated organization focused on low carbon business prospects named New Energies. Chevron has already named Jeff Gustavson president, New Energies, who will report directly to Chevron Chairman and CEO, Michael Wirth.

Chevron New Energies’ initial focus will include commercialization opportunities in hydrogen, carbon capture, and offsets and support of ongoing growth in biofuels.

“Chevron New Energies reflects our higher returns, lower carbon strategy”, said Wirth.

The supply chain in the subsea sector is also taking an active role in projects related to the energy transition. Namely, Vallourec will supply 200 kilometres of tubes for umbilicals on what has been described as a groundbreaking project that will capture, transport and geologically store industrial CO2 emissions in the North Sea.

The tubes will be incorporated into the umbilicals that will remotely control the equipment on the seabed.

Hydrogen technology, which is set to play a major role in achieving a carbon-neutral economy by 2050, this week received support from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and industry association Hydrogen Europe as the two signed an agreement for consultancy services for green hydrogen projects.

The parties will cooperate on market development initiatives and conduct joint market outreach as well as help develop dedicated EIB financing products for green hydrogen.

The European Hydrogen Strategy, which is part of the European Green Deal, wants to enable the widespread use of hydrogen by 2050. According to the strategy, green hydrogen will be produced on a systemically relevant scale between 2030 and 2050. For that to happen, investments in renewable or low-carbon hydrogen will need to increase.

Green hydrogen generation is also part of a tidal energy project in Scotland. Earlier this week, Orbital Marine Power’s O2 started grid-connected power generation offshore Orkney.

The O2 turbine, deemed the world’s most powerful tidal turbine, is also set to provide power for an onshore electrolyser to generate green hydrogen that will be used to demonstrate decarbonisation of wider energy requirements.

Andrew Scott, Orbital’s CEO, said: “Our vision is that this project is the trigger to the harnessing of tidal stream resources around the world to play a role in tackling climate change whilst creating a new, low-carbon industrial sector”.

As one of six new research projects that aim to build a sustainable future for the marine environment, the University of Liverpool has become a part of a partnership that has been awarded funding by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

The ‘Co-Opt’ project will develop new tools that will allow better decisions to be made to both protect coasts from changing climate and help deliver net-zero ambitions.

Project lead, Dr Laurent Amoudry, Associate Head of Marine Physics and Ocean Climate at the National Oceanography Centre, said: “Our results will allow better decisions to be made that both protect our coasts from the changing climate and also help deliver other key objectives, such as net-zero”.

Coastal hazards will be increasing over the next century, primarily driven by unavoidable sea level rise. It is, therefore, essential to ensure that UK coasts are managed so that coastal protection is resilient to future climate change.