MOL, Mitsubishi and Kansai Electric in MOU to build up green ammonia supply network
Japan’s Mitsui OSK Line has revealed plans to develop an ammonia floating storage and regasification unit. The Japanese conglomerate said in a statement that is has completed a concept study for an FSRU for ammonia fuel in collaboration with Mitsubishi Shipbuilding and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
MOL has now made an agreement with Japan’s second largest utility company Kansai Electric Power to jointly conduct a study to introduce an ammonia FSRU as a step to building an ammonia supply chain.
The current 43 (as of 2020) FSRU’s in service have been built with the expansion of the natural gas market. They are either converted LNG carriers or built specifically as FSRU’s but their design characteristics are as LNG carriers (to store natural gas as a liquid at lower than 162 degrees centigrade). Their role is to store LNG (usually imported) and then to re-gasify it and send it ashore for industrial and societal use as natural gas. FSRU’s are seen as cheaper and more easily deployable than land-based storage and regasification plants.
Like natural gas ammonia is a gas at ambient temperature and pressure, but for effective and efficient transportation and storage needs to be in liquid form (below -33 degrees centigrade). Ammonia is also highly soluble in water.
Green ammonia, (made from renewable electricity and electrolysis of water) is not abundant as of today, most ammonia is made using the reformation of methane/LNG and made for the chemical industries or as a fertiliser.
With a growing number of industrial efforts to build up green ammonia as a marine fuel. MOL is looking at its role in an expansion of ammonia supply chains. The Japanese company said it believes FSRUs will speed up the adoption of ammonia fuel and contribute to its wider use as a lower-environmental-impact next-generation fuel.
“In this concept study, the team examined specifications of several cases with different conditions such as tank size and regasification method to meet a broad range of needs. In addition, the team developed a design concept of a lower environmental impact FSRU that would be powered by electricity generated with ammonia fuel,” it said. ”MOL, Mitsubishi Shipbuilding, and Kansai Electric Power are continuing their study aimed at introducing ammonia FSRUs in various regions of the world”
