Shipping could tilt towards abated LNG and HSFO from 2030 – DNV

Ships will continue to largely consume a mix of fossil fuels, including HSFO, LSMGO and fossil LNG, at least until 2028, classification society DNV forecasts.

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Scrubber-fitted ships equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology will continue to use HSFO from 2028 through 2050, according to DNV's Maritime Forecast 2050. The same is predicted for dual-fuel ships running on LNG. 

VLSFO and marine gas oil are likely to remain part of the shipping fuel mix through 2050, the report said.

Although fossil fuels will likely remain part of the future bunker fuel mix, the industry is anticipated to gradually reduce its overall fossil fuel consumption in favour of biofuels and e-fuels from 2028 onward.

The bunker fuel mix could mainly feature biofuels, including biodiesel, biomethanol some bio-LNG, and blue ammonia between 2028 and 2038.

If e-fuel availability remains limited, biofuels will continue to dominate towards 2050, while nuclear propulsion could gain prominence from 2040, the report added.

If e-fuels become more accessible, then the forecast predicts a shift towards a mix of e-methanol, e-methane and synthetic marine gasoil (e-MGO) from 2038 to 2050. Green ammonia may also replace blue ammonia in the marine fuel mix during this period.

“There is a limited supply of sustainable carbon from point sources, resulting in CO2 from direct air capture being used as feedstock in carbon-based electrofuels, driving up the price of carbon-based electrofuels relative to ammonia,” the report explained.

Meeting IMO’s interim targets

The classification society forecasts that around 44-63 million mt of oil equivalent (mtoe) of zero-emission fuels will be available for all sectors, including shipping, by 2030. One mtoe represents the amount of energy released by burning one mt of crude oil and is used to compare energy outputs across fuels with varying energy contents.

DNV estimates that shipping could require anywhere between 7 to 48 million mtoe/year of this supply by 2030 to meet the IMO’s indicative checkpoint of a 20-30% reduction in CO2 intensity for international shipping by 2030, compared to 2008 levels.

However, given the current e-fuel production pipeline and increasing competition from sectors such as aviation, road transport, and power plants, “the amounts of carbon-neutral fuels—from renewable electricity, sustainable biomass, and fossil sources with carbon capture and storage—that will be available for shipping are still uncertain,” the report noted.

This indicates that shipping will need to increasingly adopt technologies that reduce emissions without relying solely on zero-emission fuels, DNV said. For this reason, it highlighted that CCS is expected to play a crucial role in complementing both fossil and low- to zero-emission bunker fuels from 2030 through 2050.

By Konica Bhatt

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