WinGD, Samsung Heavy Industries join forces on ammonia-powered ships

Swiss marine power company WinGD and shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) have agreed to cooperate on the installation of WinGD’s X-DF-A dual-fuel ammonia engines on forthcoming newbuild vessels.

The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding during the Gastech conference in Singapore that kicked off yesterday.

The cooperation will include preparing X-DF-A for integration with wider ammonia fuel systems and auxiliary machinery across a range of vessel designs, including oil tankers, container ships, and ammonia carriers. The project is in line with WinGD’s previously announced timeframe of bringing X-DF-A ammonia engines into service from Q1 2025.

The decision comes on the heels of combustion tests at WinGD research facilities in December 2022, backed by recent rapid progress in developing an engine concept capable of using zero-carbon fuel efficiently. The company expects the first X-DF-A powered vessels in service from 2026. 

“Working with WinGD to prepare its ammonia engines for integration with newbuild projects in key vessel segments will ensure that SHI can offer customers the future fuel vessel solutions they need to meet their decarbonisation targets,” Haeki Jang, CTO at Samsung Heavy Industries, said.

“This collaboration offers WinGD the opportunity to participate in the future fuel preparations of one of the world’s biggest and most respected builders of high-quality vessels. The aim is to prepare engine and vessel designs as well as fuel system integration specifications that will lead to X-DF-A engines being deployed on a wide range of SHI-built, ammonia-fuelled vessels,” Volkmar Galke, Director Sales, WinGD, added.

WinGD is due to begin validation of its ammonia-fuelled engine concept on single and multi-cylinder test engines, in Winterthur and Shanghai, later this year. The validation tests follow combustion concept testing that began in 2021, in concert with simulation and rig tests to understand the emissions characteristics and injection requirements of ammonia fuel.

The X-DF-A, like its methanol-fuelled counterpart X-DF-M, will operate on a high-pressure Diesel-cycle combustion process, with liquid ammonia fuel injection supported with a low portion of pilot fuel.

In June this year, WinGD teamed up with MISC Berhad (MISC), a provider of energy-related maritime solutions, and classification society DNV for the development of ammonia engines for ammonia dual-fueled vessels.

The collaboration agreements among MISC’s shipping arm AET, ALAM and WinGD aim to drive the development of ammonia engines for ammonia dual-fuel vessels and strengthen its commitment to finding sustainable and safe transition pathways to zero-emission shipping.

This agreement also plays a role in the development and training of mariners to safely manage vessels built with new technologies and ammonia engines.