The road to ship-based carbon

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF VDL AEC MARITIME.

VDL AEC Maritime started out by providing scrubbers for the landbased industry. With more than 25 years of experience and having delivered more than 2,500 systems, they have become experts in the feld of scrubbers. The frst scrubber systems for the maritime industry were provided for ships in Scandinavian waters, where legislation for sulphur emission reduction had previously been initiated by local authorities. Since 1 January 2020, all vessels worldwide must comply with the regulation for a maximum sulphur emission of 0.5%. Ships can do this either by sailing on very low sulphur fuel (VLSFO), which is very expensive, or by

continuing to sail on the existing high sulphur fuel oil, or heavy fuel oil (HFO), which is less expensive. This means that the greater the diference between HFO and VLSFO prices, the faster the payback time of a scrubber investment for shipowners. Because of IMO2020 regulations entering into force, VDL AEC Maritime delivered more than 100 scrubber systems for the maritime sector before 1 January 2020. Not much later, the COVID pandemic arose, causing oil prices to slump. With the collapse of oil prices, the diference between HFO and VLSFO prices also became smaller, making the payback period for a scrubber longer and, as a result, interest declined. “Currently, the market is starting to pick up and you can see that oil prices have risen again, making the diference between HFO and VLSFO prices larger again as well. With this increase, the interest in scrubber systems has increased again”, says Rick van Kasteren of VDL AEC Maritime.

In addition, a new regulation is on the way. As of 1 January 2030 (IMO2030), all ships worldwide must achieve a CO2 reduction of 40% compared to 2008 levels. This is quite a challenge for shipowners. VDL AEC Maritime currently develops a ship-based carbon capture system that will be able to reduce CO2 emissions of a ship by up to 90%. The system is scalable, meaning that the shipowner is able to comply with not only the IMO2030 rule (-40% compared to 2008), but also directly with the IMO2050 rule (-50% compared to 2008). In addition, the system gives a signifcant fnancial advantage when CO2 taxes for shipping come into efect. For European waters, this carbon tax will be introduced next year, according to the ‘Fit for 55’ programme. This means that for every tonne of CO2 less emitted by a vessel, no carbon tax has to be paid. “With expected taxes in excess of USD 100 per tonne, a ship-based carbon capture system will quickly pay for itself”, says Mr van Kasteren. The currently most reliable strategy to reduce carbon emissions is to capture the CO2 released during combustion from the exhaust gases. This CO2 must then be briefy stored on board until it can be unloaded in a port. A major advantage of a carbon capture system is that it hardly requires any adjustments to the current engine system. The system can be integrated in newbuilds and can also be retroftted on existing ships.

In March, VDL AEC Maritime received an order for the delivery of two retroft scrubber systems to international shipping company Seatrade Groningen. With this order, VDL AEC Maritime extends its portfolio for the frst time in their own home country, ánd to a Dutch ship-owner. The two SOx-scrubber systems will be delivered and installed before the end of 2022. Joost Wijdeveld of VDL AEC Maritime says, “This deal is very important for us. We are very excited with our new client Seatrade Groningen and we are looking forward to a great cooperation. For us this is another milestone and thanks to optimisation of our supply chain and a sophisticated strategic inventory policy we are able to reduce lead times for Seatrade, despite worldwide material shortages, in order to deliver quickly.”