Nordic firms team up to cut methane slip from LNG-powered vessels
Swedish shipping company Furetank and Finnish engine maker Wärtsilä have partnered to develop and test two technologies with potential to halve methane slip from LNG-fuelled vessels.
PHOTO: The 1,799 dwt Fure Vinga is one of the vessels that will be retrofitted with methane slip reduction equipment. Furetank
Vessels consuming LNG “brings many benefits compared to conventional fuel oil, reducing emissions of CO2, NOx, SOx and harmful particles,” but methane slip remains “a much debated downside,” Furetank says.
Methane slip occurs when unburned methane from ship engines escapes into the atmosphere. Since it is unplanned for and therefore largely unmeasured, it poses a significant threat to the environment due to methane’s high global warming potential as a greenhouse gas (GHG). Methane emissions have up to 36 times higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide over a century, according to a World Bank study.
“It is a tough nut to crack and the most important technical issue for us to solve. There is an ongoing chase for new engine solutions which will only intensify with the EU ETS system and stricter IMO regulations,” Furetank’s technical manager Clas Gustafsson says.
Both companies consider this slip “the most critical technical challenge to overcome in gas-fueled vessels,” and are trying to mitigate it by co-developing technologies.
Efforts to counter methane slip
Two technologies have been tested onboard Furetank’s Vinga series tankers.
Wärtsilä has developed a GHG reduction package, which is a software upgrade for dual-fuel engines. The package controls the engine “while working in demanding conditions like manoeuvring, harsh sea conditions or varying fuel quality.” This helps to control fuel combustion in the engine, and in turn this minimises unburned gas emissions.
The other technology reduces methane slip at low engine loads. This package “balances the loading of each engine cylinder, optimizing the overall total engine efficiency even at a low engine load.”
Promising results
These two technologies have been tested in both “the laboratory and at sea” and have been proven to reduce methane slip by 45-50%, Furetank claims.
“The tests show a significant impact in absolute terms. We believe many shipping companies will be interested in these solutions,” Wärtsilä’s sales director of marine power Göran Österdahl says.
The global LNG-fuelled fleet now comprises 420 vessels, with another 123 expected to join this year, data from classification society DNV shows.
Implementation
Furetank will implement the two methane slip-reduction equipment on its upcoming Vinga series vessels, which are being built at the China Merchants Jinling Shipyard in Yangzhou. It will also retrofit it on all of its previous vessels of the series. The total number of Vinga series vessels in operation and on order stands at 17.
By Tuhin Roy
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