Page 26: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2023)

FUEL TRANSITION

METHANOL:

Source Maersk

FIRST IN A LONG LINE

If there’s one vessel that sparked the rapidly increasing number of methanol-fueled newbuilding orders, it’s the new container feeder, Laura Maersk.

By Wendy Laursen t last count, A.P. Moller - Maersk has 24 more and therefore critical for meeting its goal of being net zero methanol-fueled ships on order. The ? rst, the du- by 2040. When all current orders are deployed and have re- al-fuel methanol container feeder, Laura Maersk, placed older vessels, they will generate annual CO2 emis-

Awill gain experience for those that follow. sions savings of around 2.3 million tons from the 33 million

The 172-meter (564-foot) 2,100 TEU Laura Maersk was or- tons currently emitted.

dered from Hyundai Mipo in 2021, a time when the industry’s More than half Maersk’s customers have set or are setting only experience with methanol as fuel was the retro? tted ferry ambitious supply chain decarbonization targets. Laura Maersk

Stena Germanica and a handful of tankers. Of? cially named will trade in Sealand Europe network, with ice class suitable for in September 2023, it is the ? rst methanol-powered vessel year-round Baltic operation and a design speed of 17.4 knots. that doesn’t carry methanol as cargo and the ? rst vessel with “We have started the transition,” says Ole Graa Jakobsen, 4-stroke dual fuel methanol auxiliary engines. head of ? eet technology at Maersk. This comes with addition-

Laura Maersk was built to ABS class and features a classic al cost, he says, however the additional capex for the dual- design: the innovation comes in the engines. Both the 2-stroke fuel capability compared to a conventional vessel is declining

MAN B&W 6G50ME-LGIM main engine built by HHI-EMD from around 15% to 8-12%.

and two HHI-EMD Himsen H32DF-LM 4-stroke auxiliary “The ? rst mover will of course always take a larger part of engines will be methanol dual-fuel. the cost, because this is the ? rst product,” he says. “Even as

Maersk sees methanol as a scalable fuel for this decade the scaling comes in, it will probably never be as cheap as a 26 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • November 2023

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