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Maersk rules out LNG

in future fuel mix

DENMARK DANISH shipping giant Maersk sees no major such plans, having already ordered the retrofit
role for LNG in its future fuel mix, CEO Soren of its Sajir containership to run on LNG at the
Maersk would rather Skou told investors last week, saying that the Huarun Dadong shipyard in China.
make the jump straight group would move straight to zero-emissions Hydrogen, ammonia and batteries are also
to even cleaner fuels. fuels to decarbonise its operations. being discussed as solutions to the shipping
LNG has been touted as a potential transition industry’s carbon footprint. Maersk is working
fuel for the shipping sector, benefiting from a hard to decide which option is best before it
significant expansion in infrastructure in recent orders any new ships.
years. Compared with today’s dominant mari- “In terms of vessel types, we are very much
time fuel, fuel oil, it produces 25% less CO2, 80% aware of the risk of ordering ships at this point,”
less NOX and virtually eliminates SOX and fine he said. “We are not planning to order any new
particles. ship any time soon, because we still haven’t
However, Skou said Maersk was unlikely to made up our mind on the potential fuels of the
invest in LNG-powered ships as a transition future.”
towards even cleaner alternatives. Maersk announced two years ago it would
“We don’t believe that LNG will play a big role seek to become a carbon-neutral company by
for us as a transition fuel, because it is still a fossil 2050, and it has said it will need to develop a
fuel, and we would rather go from what we do carbon-neutral fleet by 2030 to achieve this goal.
today straight to a neutral type of fuel,” he said This means carbon-neutral fuels and their supply
while presenting Maersk’s third-quarter results. chains will need to scaled up substantially over
“However, that will be years into the future, I the next decade for Maersk’s ambition to become
suspect.” a reality.
Others like French containership owner Maersk has stepped up investments in
CMA CGM have invested heavily in LNG- research and development work on decarbon-
fuelled marine transport. The company wants to isation solutions, and teamed up in June with
have a fleet of 26 LNG-powered ships in oper- ABS, Cargill, MAN Energy Solutions, Mitsub-
ation by 2022, including nine 23,000-TEU, 11 ishi Heavy Industries, NYK Lines and Siemens
15,000-TEU and six 14,000-TEU vessels. Ger- Energy to set up the Maersk Mc-Kinny Moller
man liner Hapag-Lloyd may follow suit with Centre for Zero Carbon Shipping. ™

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