Pilbara Clean Fuels, Oceania Marine join hands on eLNG project

Pilbara Clean Fuels (PCF) has teamed up with Oceania Marine Energy on the provision of low-carbon footprint LNG production and marine bunkering capability at Port Hedland, Western Australia.

PCF is pursuing the development of an electrified liquefied natural gas (eLNG) plant in Port Hedland, world’s largest iron ore export port, principally for the production of marine bunker fuel.

The project aims to provide an Australian LNG fuel supply capability through a new facility for the conversion of pipeline natural gas to LNG, responding to market demand for cleaner marine bunker fuel for iron ore carriers operating ‘round-trip’ voyages out of Port Hedland.

Market studies show increasing worldwide adoption of LNG as a marine fuel, with supply availability one of the key drivers. The ‘base case’ plant capacity is 0.5Mtpa, with market analysis for Port Hedland indicating potential demand of 1.0 Mtpa by 2030. 

A key feature of the project is a fully electrified plant with outsourced power supplied from predominantly renewable sources. The plant design intent is to significantly reduce emissions compared to conventional LNG plants, thereby providing the ability for ‘round-trip’ LNG bunkering in Port Hedland to achieve substantially lower overall GHG life-cycle emissions than other options.        

The LNG re-fuelling concept is based on ship-to-ship bunkering of vessels while at anchor off Port Hedland.

Oceania Marine Energy (Oceania) is developing an LNG marine fuel bunkering business using a purpose-designed LNG re-fuelling vessel to be chartered from Kanfer Shipping, Norway.   

Having recognized the complementary aspects of the duo’s capabilities, PCF and Oceania have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 19 December 2022.

Under the terms of the MoU, PCF and Oceania have agreed on an exclusive relationship to develop an ‘end-to-end’ low-carbon profile eLNG production and marine vessel bunkering capability concept for the port of Port Hedland. 

“We are pleased to have formed the collaborative relationship with OME. The partnership provides a truly end-to-end development and implementation capability for LNG marine bunkering at Port Hedland. We believe the reduced GHG life-cycle profile of the concept, compared to the status quo, will fuel lively debate among stakeholders concerning the overall economic and environmental benefit and ‘value-add’ to WA’s iron ore resources through this attractive application of the State’s natural gas,” PCF Managing Director, Robert Malabar said.

“Oceania and PCF’s collaboration heralds the beginning of a new decarbonisation initiative in Western Australia, enabling a much-needed lower-carbon fuel source for shipping. The Oceania and PCF collaboration is aimed at providing a supply capability for low-carbon footprint LNG, for the first time available on-route to the Australia Asia iron ore shipping fleets,” Oceania Managing Director, Nick Bentley, said.