Alfa Laval will retrofit methanol fuel supply system on Maersk container ship

Swedish engineering firm Alfa Laval will install a methanol fuel supply line next to the vessel’s traditional fuel supply line to meet existing onboard space limitations.

PHOTO: Maersk Line container ship docked at the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk, England. Getty Images

Danish shipping major A.P. Moller-Maersk (Maersk) will retrofit its 15,000 twenty-foot-equivalent (TEU) container ship, Maersk Halifax, to dual-fuel methanol propulsion by mid-2024.

German engine manufacturer MAN Energy Solutions (MAN ES) will supply the methanol dual-fuel engine and Alfa Laval will provide the fuel supply system for the project.

Alfa Laval will install “a new fuel line for methanol alongside the traditional fuel line” on the vessel. This solution is designed to meet existing space constraints while adhering to the tight delivery schedule, it added.

Chinese shipping company COSCO Shipping and German shipping company Hapag Lloyd also plan to retrofit their vessels with MAN ES methanol dual-fuel engines over the next decade. However, the announced timelines place Maersk at the forefront of launching the first retrofitted vessel to run on methanol in addition to conventional marine fuel, a year ahead of COSCO's schedule.

The retrofit project will “pave the way for future scalable retrofit programs in the industry and thereby accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to green fuels,” Leonardo Sonzio, head of fleet management and technology at Maersk said in July.

“Ultimately, we want to demonstrate that methanol retrofits can be a viable alternative to new buildings.”

“We are in the early days of a huge wave of dual-fuel retrofits and see many concrete projects coming online with the capacity to meet shipping’s demand for green fuels, such as e-methanol and bioLNG,” Michael Petersen, head of MAN ES’ PrimeServ Service Center in Denmark added in a recent statement. “We expect that owners who have opted to wait and watch over the past few years will ultimately also convert their tonnage to dual-fuel,” he said.

By Konica Bhatt

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