Who is pulling the strings?
Maritime Ventures Newsletter 3.6
This month in the Maritime Ventures Newsletter
Welcome to the November edition of the Maritime Ventures Newsletter, your source of the latest news and insights from the world of maritime tech deals, software, sustainability and innovation. If you have any feedback, questions, or suggestions, please feel free to contact me by replying to this email or follow me on LinkedIn.
If you are building or know of a start-up I should speak to, feel welcome to respond to this newsletter with a Hey 🚀
Anyways, grab yourself a good cup of coffee, tea or a beer and enjoy a snapshot of the pulsating life of maritime software, sustainability, and innovation. Happy reading!
Monthly Commentary
Wind-Assisted Propulsion Systems (WAPS) is on a roll this month, with Bound4Blue being the key driving force for the announcements. First with an easy announcement of software development, then the sails kept coming one by one - and with every new it was the “biggest” suction sail in the world, from 22m to 24m and then to 26m with the massive 20 sail order for five ships for Maersk Tankers. Kudos to the team!
Now, with WAPS being on a roll - lets have a look in the mirror of things that also were on a roll. First, BWMS. Booming in the 2010s on the anticipation of the IMO regulations, and now as they are everywhere - commoditisation and consolidation. Then, scrubbers. Booming in and around 2019-2020, and lasted for just a couple of years before the market saturated and currently sits at 29% of all vessels (see Manta Marine Technologies AS’ public accounts, former Yara Marine Tech, for a visualisation). From 2020 till today, the cost of installing a scrubber has dropped close to 40%.
So, WAPS and other emerging energy efficiency measures - what happens with all the providers once the systems are installed? And, how many vessels are realistic to be installing WAPS? Well, considering the challenges putting them on container carriers as well as on general bulk carriers (both with space constraints, but with players like GT Wings making strides here), and the lesser benefits for short-sea and regional trades—since the main advantages are for vessels on major oceanic routes like the North Atlantic and Pacific crossings—we’re probably not talking about all 55,000 merchant ships. However, with an (assumed) cost of at least $1m for each vessel installation, you just need 10k vessels to be a billion dollar market.. Not too bad.
On the other end of the funding spectrum, there were two major M&A transactions this month - Kpler buying Spire’s Maritime assets and Sedna acquiring Nordic IT:
The first looks to be Kpler continuing their path to dominating the market intelligence space, after their acquisition of Marinetraffic and Fleetmon last year. With that, suddenly Kpler controls one out of the two AIS data satellite providers and has taken a strong stance on the movement data of ships. More of a vertical integration in the data value chain than anything else, securing their supply of data while building a new leg to stand on as a data-provider for others.
The second is a classic consolidation play - a messaging solutions provider acquiring one of its competitors, reducing the number of direct competitors in the space.
Now, after Kplers acquisition of ChartDesk they are also a competitor in the messaging solutions space (or email software if you will), while the two of them employing different strategies. One has messaging as one feature of a product with the core product being a vast dataset on trade flows, while the other has messaging as the core product.
Fundamentally, you could say the two companies are working with different types of information flow: strings (text) vs time-series. Now that we are in an LLM world, who wins? While LLMs are inherently about strings, its also an enabler for agentic systems - potentially doing / refining the time-series analytics. I’ll continue to speculate as we see the developments :)
Now, to less speculation, and over to facts - enjoy the last month’s pulsating life of maritime innovation!
Maritime Technology Ventures featured in media
On Deals
Early Stage (Seed + A)
Carbon Ridge raises $9.5M to accelerate onboard CCS commercialization - Round led by Crosscut Ventures and Western Technology Investment, with participation from Katapult Ocean, Incite, Spitzer Industries and Canopy Generation Funds - as well as existing investors of the Grantham Foundation, Berge Bulk, Rusheen Capital Management and Plug and Play Ventures. Carbon Ridge uses a reactor with 75% reduction in footprint compared to conventional CCS and limits additional energy consumption to <5%. Undisclosed CO2 capture rate, but also captures NOx and SOx emissions as well as eliminates 99.9% of particulates.
SeaO₂ gets €2m in new funding for seawater carbon removal tech - Removes carbon from the ocean, “Direct Ocean Capture”, returning “carbon-free water to the ocean”. Round with participation from DOEN Participaties, NEW-TTT fund, Future Tech Ventures, CarbonFix, angel investors Eduard Talman and Siddharth Kambe “and others”. Will use the funds to set up pilot plant (250t / year capture) and a monitoring/reporting/verification system.
Renewable energy group Drax invests in tech firm planning sail system on nuclear waste carrier - Invests £1m in Smart Green Shipping and plans to fit a wing sail system on one of their chartered vessels for a sea trial (and dismantled after), and if successful they will install it on another one of their vessels. Will use the funds to develop a route optimisation system, optimising for wind sails alongside voyage and weather routing.
MOL PLUS to Invest in EneCoat Technologies - Invests in a solar cell technology that works well in low-lighting environments, with perovskite solar cells, coming out of Kyoto University. Undisclosed sums.
Nevoya wants to break the EV truck adoption logjam - A case in point for commercialising EVs in heavy-transport industries, with Nevoya raising $3m in a seed round led by Third Sphere and RedBlue Capital, with participation from Necessary Ventures, Ciri Ventures, and Never Lift. Buys exclusively electric trucks to offer to shippers, and uses AI to optimise the usage, routing and charging, aiming to keep prices lower than diesel trucks. Use of funds to fund operations, but not acquiring trucks - using debt for that. Who’s first for maritime? I have some in mind..
Portcast Secures USD 6.5 Million Series A Funding Led by Susquehanna Asia VC to Automate Actions through Supply Chain Visibility - With participation from Hearst Ventures, Signal Ventures and existing investors Wavemaker Partners, TMV and Innoport. Undisclosed valuation. Focus shifts from monitoring shipments to drive actions from visibility data through automated recommendations.
Shipfinex gets $1.5m investment for maritime finance blockchain platform - Round led by Gaurav Mehta with investments from Vivek Seth and Yasovardhan Chinni, all shipping executives. Will use the funding to grow, build the product and manage regulatory alignment with Dubai’s virtual assets regulatory authority (VARA).
Growth Stage (B+)
Path Robotics Raises $100M in Venture Capital Funding - Automated welding, from a lot of non-maritime investors.
VELA lands €40M to revolutionise maritime transport with wind-powered vessel Trimaran - Led by Credit Mutuel Impact, 11th Hour Racing and BPI - French Public Investment Bank. A “significant” step in the development as they will now launch the building of their first vessel at the Australian Shipyard, Austal. Will be the largest sailing / wind-powered cargo trimaran. Taking experience from offshore racing, they aim for fast sailing schedules across the Atlantic, from French Atlantic coast to US East Coast, launched in the second half of 2026.
Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo closes $5.6 billion funding round as robotaxi race heats up in the U.S. - When will we have RoboTugs in maritime?? Soon, soon.
Outrider Raises $62M To Power Scaling Of Logistics Yard Autonomy - Raises a Series D round led by Koch Disruptive Technologies (CVC of Koch Industries) and New Enterprise Associates, with additional investments from 8VC, ARK Invest, B37 Ventures, FM Capital, Interwoven Ventures, NVentures (CVC of NVIDIA) and Prologis Ventures, as Goose Capital, Lineage Ventures, Presidio Ventures (CVC of Sumitomo Corporation) and Service Provider Capital. Looking to optimise logistics hubs operations.
M&A
Miros buys out Miros Mocean from joint venture partners - Buys out the vessel performance optimisation platform from JV partners BW Group and Copenhagen Commercial Platform, while continuing to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Miros (the sensorics, data collection and storage of ocean conditions company).
Spire Global offloads commercial maritime business for $241 million - Kpler buying the customer contracts and exclusive right to sell ship-tracking data from Spire’s satellites, which Spire will retain for themselves. That is some valuable contracts and rights. Anyone interested in Perpexity’s thoughts on Spire’s outlook following the acquisition, can see here (a big shoutout to the tsunami of AI-tools making your life easier these days).
Sedna buys rival Nordic IT platform as it seeks to boost email insights - Consolidation in the email space! World domination in motion for Sedna? Asked Bill about the future of maritime software and potential for increasingly integrated solutions, and the obstacle of the “lets build it ourselves” bias in maritime - his view is clear:
There are so many tech companies who do not want to build products on top of of a platform with global reach, because they're worried it cuts of future revenue paths even though they don't even have those customers today.
MacGregor to have a new owner - PE firm Triton carves out the business from mother company Cargotec Corporation, for an enterprise value of US $480m. Maritime is on the map for PE!
BWMS: Erma First acquires Echoclor - Ballast water systems is now installed on most vessels and the market is reaching saturation, and thus: consolidation. Undisclosed sums.
On Emissions Transparency
Singapore brokers launch new platform to bring green ship recycling deals into the digital age - Slightly different kind of transparency, here bringing green ship recycling deals onto a platform. Modernising the way shipowners connect with cash buyers, however not cutting out the middleman (the shipbroker), aiming to drive up the price as transparency of the process brings more buyers to the table.
Pioneering pool reaches 200 ships as Van Weelde bulker fleet opts in - The Van Weelde Shipping Group, owners of the drybulk fleet managed by Orient Shipping Rotterdam, signs LOI to join Ahti Pool, after assessing various compliance options in the market.
ABL Teams Up with Tech Start-Up for Maritime Decarbonization - Satva Trust, who’s predicting vessel emissions, and then sells this to marine insurance and finance institutions - as well as shipowners - has now teamed up with marine consultancy ABL to improve their tech.
Shipping Technology CO2 reporting system gets approval - Used to calculate emissions from inland navigation vessels and coasters, gets approval from LRQA (formerly part of LR) for their automatic emissions reporting module.
UECC deploys emissions monitoring system - Installing Daphne Technology’s PureMetrics on one vessel in the beginning of 2025, to report accurately to the EU MRV system.
Fuelink adds FuelEU support to bunker software - The myriad of FuelEU Maritime software grows, here with a voyage calculator and access to credits coming on top of the bunker software’s existing EU ETS and EUA inventory management system.
On Future Crewing & Safety
Zelim completes AI search and rescue trials in Canada - Scottish safety tech company completes trials with Canada’s Civil Air Search and Rescue Association, a volunteer organisation that participates in many of the country’s search and rescue operations. Hopes to deploy the system operationally in the coming months.
Adonis and Certus Online to integrate software systems - HR, Payroll and crewing management provider Adonis adds on Certus Online’s booking and route management system. First partnership after Ripple acquired Adonis.
Entrepreneur seeks to create ‘ultimate social media platform’ for shipping - Launching “The Hood”, a platform for seafarers to “network, chat, job hunt, access education and support, and share ideas”. Jumping out of the crewing department of Columbia and backed by an “unnamed venture capital firm, which owns the majority of shares” - might have a hunch who that can be..
On Port Operations Optimisation
Arrowad Group signs strategic collaboration agreement with Awake.AI - An education, consultation, training and IT group of companies in Saudi Arabia signs with Finnish port optimisation platform.
Saudi Ports Authority, Hamburg Port Authority and HPC in port innovation MoU - And the Saudi’s are on it again, this time the port authorities look to work with the Hamburgians on innovation projects in port operations, port development and workforce capacity building.
DP World Dakar introduces Portchain system to optimise berth alignment - More DP World rollouts for Portchain, with Dakar following DP World Santos a few months back.
EPA names successful applicants for $3 billion in Clean Ports Program grants - The US Environmental Protection Agency announced 55 successful applicants from 27 states and territories to receive $3bn, for deployment of zero-emission equipment, infrastructure, climate and air quality projects.
European Space Agency DECARDIS project to target ‘sail fast then wait’ - Awake.AI, ABB and Wallenius Marine to work on developing a just-in-time arrival system for ships, together with ESA, and looking to integrate with ABB-Wallenius Marine’s voyage optimisation solution.
Blue Visby trials cut emissions on Marubeni’s LPG trades by nearly 30% - A bit further down the road, Blue Visby has had trials on 16 LPG carriers chartered by Marubeni, across 40 voyages, over three months. Average savings of 29%. The consortium is comprising of more than 40 members, but jointly coordinated by NAPA and law firm Stephenson Harwood.
Diize launches version for of its “AOB” port call administration software - Officially launches “offline-first” port call administration solution, with 270 paying clients already onboard, saving 2.5-3h per port call.
FERNRIDE Successfully Completes External Evaluation of Safety & Security Concept - Passes evaluation done by TUV SUD, first stage on the path to certification of autonomous terminal tractors.
Belfast Harbour gets $500k in funding to test autonomous Terminal Tractors technology - Speaking of autonomous tractors, here with AIDrivers and terminal tractors getting funding.
On Remote Surveying & Inspection
Hmm.. couldn’t find much that happened in this space, might as well put in a drone meme:
On Connected Vessels
Enabling Digital Vessels
Eutelsat adds 20 more satellite for OneWeb LEO constellation - Launched into space by SpaceX and added onto the constellation of over 600 LEO sattelites.
‘K’ Line to begin NexusWave trials - Following Hapag-Lloyd’s NexusWave announcement last month, more trials coming for Viasat.
75-vessel connectivity upgrade for Pacific Basin Shipping - Implementing KVH’s “ONE multi-orbit services”, including LEO connection via Starlink.
German Tanker Shipping deploys vessel IT management system on tanker fleet - Following a successful PoC on a tanker while in drydock, they are now rolling it our across their fleet. Includes managing apps and OT systems onboard as well as connection to Starlink (+ VSAT backup) and GSM.
Transpetro to deploy multi-orbit hybrid satcoms following Marlink agreement - Brazilian tanker operator deploys VSAT + Starlink package, alongside network management, application routing, wifi and VoIP services from Marlink, across their fleet.
Wireless monitoring of water-lubricated bearings now possible - While the use case might seem a bit niche, the application of electromagnetic field signalling tech to transfer data from an underwater sensor to over water receiver is quite cool.
Navarino launches bridge and navigation tech business - Expanding from connectivity and vessel IT to the adjancancy of navigation systems and electronics, and offering “Bridge as a Service” with flexible purchase/leasing models, alongside offering installation, servicing and support of GMDSS systems and safety equipment.
Telemar partners with Sealution on ship data tech - Some light shed on Sealution’s system, who’s leveraging the existing cabling (typically for fire detection & alarm systems) by integrating an onboard gateway, where Telemar will provide installation, service and maintenance for Sealution.
Digital Vessel Management
Closelink improves lubricant consumption data analytics - Launches “Calculated Average Consumption” by calculating based on last 90 days “remaining on board” data captured from noon reports, either directly, from central data warehouses or from integrated fleet performance systems such as Navtor.
BW LNG to use Procureship to optimise fleet procurement processes - Signing on 34 vessels.
Pole Star Global and RightShip integrate platforms - Connecting platforms, first seeing RightShip integrate Pole Star’s sanction screening and technical vetting in the platform and later seeing RightShip’s risk scoring and emissions data in Pole Star’s platform - to shared customers.
Naval architects urged to share ship design data to improve vessel lifecycle performance in spirit of ‘Mottainai’ - NAPA and ClassNK looking to get shipyards to share and monetise their ship design data via the NAPA platform, to make use of the designs for digital twin use cases. Got Usuki shipyard onboard and shipowners/managers has uncovered more than 30 use cases for the hull design data.
Anthony Veder ramps up use of digital logbooks to support regulatory reporting - Meanwhile, NAPA is going at it with digital logbooks. Since A.V. introduced the NAPA Logbook in 2023, they estimate to have cut 2000 administrative hours from the vessel - or a 14% reduction. In other words, they used more than 14000 hours on admin over the last 1-1.5 years. If we say the last 540 days (18 months-ish), and 20 crew onboard, that’s 1.3h of admin per day per crew - or 25h a day per vessel.. No wonder there is a lot of logbook providers.
EU-funded TwinShip project to create decarbonisation decision support system - €9m granted to a consortium including ABS, Wartsila, Stena and Grimaldi Group, and a dozen other companies across the maritime service provider landscape, to develop a support system for newbuild and retrofitting decarbonisation devices.
Minerva vessels deploy new file sharing infrastructure - Minerva’s fleet of 70 vessels have been trialling Dualog’s email service the last year before they now implemented the file-sharing feature, allowing the ships to get onboard systems updated, ERP synchronisation and training content, alongside sharing CCTV, ECDIS, VDR and other files to shore.
Tanker firms sign up for digital SIRE 2.0 platform - Might be the very first signup (mentioned in this newsletter at least) for a digital SIRE 2.0 platform which is not Kaiko Systems. Here with WiseStella, a digital learning platform with specific SIRE and TMSA support alongside seafarer well-being monitoring.
OSM Thome rolls out Kaiko Systems for fleet inspections - In any case, Kaiko strikes again! Rolling out the tech for the entire OSM Thome fleet. Now we’re really talking.
Autonomy
Reach Subsea to get €14.3m in funding for autonomous vessel project - The EU Innovation Fund granted solid funding to this year’s “Ship of the Year” winner, under EIF’s “Net Zero Technologies” initiative, for their Reach Remote project - integrating un-crewed surface vessels with ROVs.
First icebreaker installation for Seadronix autonomous navigation system - Headline says it all.
Samsung autonomous ship tech gets ClassNK approval - AiP, lets see when it gets trialled..
Saab’s Autonomous Ocean Core brings new autonomous capability to naval vessels - I usually say “first short-sea, then deep-sea”, however here it might be a valid question to ask: “first defence, then civilian”?
Yinson and Zeabuz agreement to develop autonomous electric vessels - Signed LoI to integrate Zeabuz’ hardware and software algorithms on their fleet of electric vessels.
Samsung Heavy Industries debuts latest autonomous vessel - Meanwhile, the yards are incoming!
On Connected Cargo Operations
WaveBL and MSC complete eBL project with Swift and global banks - Completed a “proof of value” project with Swift alongside banks such as Lloyds, Emirates NBD Bank and Federal Bank Ltd., sending structured electronic documents originated on the platform sent to and between the swift members. The completion of the process means that payments can be received in hours rather than days as well as avoiding any delays on the importer’s side.
Oslo’s Maritime Optima pushing into Greece and Singapore with new hires - The “low-cost competitor of /Sea and Kpler” backed by shipping executives expands with key hires in Greece and Singapore.
Blue Water to partner with NeugenAI foundation - A maritime software provider teams up with a newly established AI foundation, to build AI agents for maritime - starting with commercial shipping data.
ZIM to accelerate smart container deployment - Announcing to accelerate deployment of smart containers with solar trackers from Hoopo, which they are already rolling out after investing $5.5m in them in 2022.
ORBCOMM upgrades container IoT system - Meanwhile, these ones are launching a new generation of a dry container IoT system, and already looking to ship over 1 million dry container devices in 2024.
Bearing AI introduces Schedule Recovery software - If the liner gets delayed, Bearing AI gives a recommendation for the liner to catch up on the delay, “maximising reliability at low cost”.
On Reducing Fuel Consumption
UK backs shipping emissions reduction projects with £8m - The UK Department for Transport, together with Innovate UK, announced investments of $10.4m across three programmes and 32 companies to test their systems, ranging from traffic planning and autonomous vessels, to green shipping routes, and autonomous terminal tractors and route planning for offshore crew transfer vessels.
Optimising Navigation & Propulsion
CORSICA linea completes voyage optimisation tech deployment - Implemented system from Spinergie, indicating to captains the most optimal route and speed based on ship particulars.
Coach Solutions upgrades optimisation software with improved weather analytics - Upgrades their voyage optimisation system with live weather conditions and forecasts.
Odfjell to use digital twins for weather routing on chemical tankers - Deploys weather routing from Syroco on two vessels, one of which will be fitted with four sails from Bound4Blue, aiming to optimise the sail effects.
Optimising Fuel Performance
Gibraltar shipyard to explore implementing passive air lubrication from Armada - MoU for exploring retrofits on air lubrication systems on vessels serviced in Gibraltar’s Gibdock.
Neptune Robotics Adds Singapore to Asia Service Network as Demand for Multi-Port Vessel Cleaning Rises - Hull cleaning robotics tech company expands to Singapore (note here to their Sequoia (China)-backed fundraise in 2022), and with 6 robots launched they look to clean 800 vessels in Singapore the next year.
Pink Panther makes Singapore debut as robot developer ECOsubsea eyes hull cleaning niche - And not more than a day after, ECOsubsea launches their cleaning solution in Singapore, during SNIC.
GIT Coatings first with new LR antifouling type approval - “Enhanced Antifouling Type Approval”, sets a new standard for antifouling coatings.
Wallenius and ABB team up to provide fleet support for smaller shipowners - Launching the Wallenius Marine-ABB Oversea centre, a digital vessel support centre to target small and medium sized shipowners optimise their performance. Initially focusing on CII improvements, main engine monitoring and reporting, and maintenance - later to move into voyage optimisation as well (as ABB acquired DTN’s routing division last year). Likely in relation to the “rush-to-wait” announcement from same companies above.
Harren Group to deploy performance management platform on 30 ships - VPS, the “subsidiary of Ascenz Marorka” (the subsidiary of GTT), wins contract.
Eastern Pacific uses DeepSea to improve fuel consumption forecasts to within 1 per cent - After a 6-month trial, have proven a highly accurate vessel behaviour prediction algorithm, across their 300-ship fleet of various vessel types.
Assisted Propulsion & Power Generation
Grain de Sail plans to build 200 TEU pure sail containership - French coffee roaster and chocolatier announced plans for a pure sailing ship (except for port and channel maneuvers), launching in 2027.
Vale to install 35m rotor sales on 400,000 dwt VLOC - Vale with more sails, these ones from Anemoi Marine.
Shipowners and tech firms scoop UK government funding for innovation projects - GT Wings and shipowner/shareholder Carisbrooke Shipping got £243k to develop a self-learning trim optimisation tool, in collaboration with University of Bath, while BAR Technologies and shipowner/shareholder Union Maritime secured £466k for development of a real-time analytics system for fuel & engine performance and route efficiency.
Bound4Blue’s software to optimise sail positioning on ships - More wind-assisted propulsion building their own software to optimise the sails.
Amasus contract with Bound4Blue for world’s largest suction sail on general cargo vessel - Will install a 22 meter unit on a 90-meter vessel, after successful experience with two sails installed on a different Amasus vessel in July 2023. “World’s largest suction sail” - 25/10/2024
Klaveness Combination Carriers moves into wind propulsion with sails on newbuilding - Two suction sails from Bound4Blue, which will be the “biggest suction sails till date” and the first build for b4b on a newbuild in China. 24 meter units - 30/10/2024
Maersk Tankers to deploy suction sail technology at scale to reduce CO2 emissions - Huge for B4B! 20 units sold, expected to deliver double-digit % reduction in fuel consumption (and thus emissions), with Njord leading the integration and installation of the systems. 26 meter units - 11/11/2024. What a month for B4B, when will the first order for 28 meter units come out?
Oldendorff aims for significant fuel savings from Flettner rotors installed on panamax bulker - Three rotor sails from Norsepower to sail across the Pacific. At optimal conditions, they saw the ship sail at 30% of the nominal main engine load at 13.4 knots.
New boss to turn wind propulsion poster child Norsepower into an industrial force - Got in new CEO (ex head of Finland’s Rauma Shipyard) earlier this year, after growing the company from 30 to 120 people the last two years, as well as opening a subsidiary in China (with the aim to protect their IP rights, now closing to 60 patents on their rotor tower as well as the control automation and AI systems). He believes the “maritime windtech market will follow the footsteos of the scrubber and ballast water tech markets where standalone, single-product start-ups developed solutions and were eventually taken over”. Given their Finnish nature, only fitting to ask - when will Wartsila announce the acquisition?
Soft Sails to be Studied by Orix and Sumitomo in Bulker Demonstration - Testing out soft sails from racing boats on a bulker.
New agreement paves way for WindWings to expand in Japanese market - After installing a couple sails on Mitsubishi Corporation’s bulker, Pyxis Ocean, BAR Technologies signs MoU with Mitsubishi and Nihon Shipyard. In tandem, Mitsubishi will also operate as an agent for BAR in Japan.
Rent out the wind: Can sail technology for specific charters avoid start-up valley of death? - Novel commercial model for a wind tech company? At least reducing the risk.
Samsung Heavy Industries unveils wind-assisted LNG carrier design - Includes their own wind sail design, seemingly a hard-sail. Quoted that they will focus more on wind power R&D. The yards are coming for ya!
European ports secure funding to speed up onshore power supply for container ships - Stockholm, Gothenburg, Aarhus and Bremerhaven has won €18m in funding for installing shore-power.
On Future Fuels
Amazon, IKEA Join Other Ocean Cargo Shippers to Boost Demand for New Green Fuels - Opening a tender in January to shipping firms to move the ZEMBA alliance cargo on vessels powered by “near-zero” emissions e-fuels.
Ammonia
LR: world fleet has 31 ammonia fuel-able vessels and 400 “ammonia ready” - LR’s “Zero Carbon Fuel Monitor” highlights 31 vessels in the existing fleet and orderbook capable of using ammonia, while over 400 claims to be “ammonia-ready”. Sounds like LR finally came up with a competitor to DNV’s “Alternative Fuels Insight”.
Canada awards EverWind funding for green ammonia project - Got up to US$16.2m to fund a loading arm, ammonia transport pipeline from the production to the dock, and to buy three tugboats and improve the dock.
Survey: Most Seafarers Would Sail on Ammonia-Fueled Ships - With Training - TL;DR: Crew just say they need training. 2k seafarers surveyed, 12% said they would not want to work with ammonia - 59% are OK and 24% are unsure.
HD Hyundai Infracore, Amogy, and SK Innovation Forge Alliance to Develop Sustainable Distributed Power Generation Solution - Not only maritime, but power generation, from a hydrogen engine manufacturer teaming up with Amogy for their ammonia-to-hydrogen technology, to launch in South Korea power market.
MAN ES launches new four-stroke ammonia engine R&D project - Following their design and testing of a two-stroke ammonia engine, now moving to four-stroke ammonia engine with an R&D project together with all the original partners as well as some new.
Hydrogen
TotalEnergies leads group including AP Moller fund in Moroccan green fuels project - Setting up a green hydrogen (and ammonia) production hub, with TotalEnergies (++) and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners being responsible for the energy production, while AP Moller Capital will develop the port and associated infrastructure.
Pioneer lines up order for first hydrogen-powered ropax to be built in US - Tradewinds with a sneaky diss here..
“Generally, hydrogen as a fuel source can support greater range and power requirements due to its high energy density,” the company said, although hydrogen has lower energy density than other low-carbon fuels.
Norwegian taxman files bankruptcy claim against hydrogen fuel cell firm Teco 2030 - Not the most positive of news, with a start-up facing bankruptcy. Let’s see if they can pay it off.
Electric Powertrain
UK research project into sensors for onboard batteries - Part of the Smart Shipping Acceleration Fund, looking to put sensors to optimise onboard batteries - here with focus on ferries, offshore wind support vessels and harborcrafts.
Shipowner Mureloil orders hybrid tanker powered by battery system - Gets a battery system from AYK Energy, who’s quoted on receiving “a higher number of quotations for vessels requiring bigger batteries than ever before”. First short-sea, then deep-sea.
VFlowTech, MOL (Asia Oceania), and MOL PLUS Sign MoU for Strategic Collaboration on Long-Duration Energy Storage to Drive Sustainability in Southeast Asia’s Logistics and Maritime sector - Looking to deploye VFlowTech’s energy storage solutions to the maritime and logistics activities of MOL.
Largest-ever batteries installed on a ship show their power during sea trials - 12 MWh of batteries, taking up four battery rooms onboard, tested for entering and leaving ports. Delivered by AYK Energy, who reveals they are about to sign a contract for a 25 MWh system for a large offshore workboat.
Candela to bring America’s first flying e-ferry to Lake Tahoe - Hydrofoil e-ferry. Whom also just happened to raise $14m on top of a $25m Series C round from earlier this year: Candela brings its P-12 electric ferry to Tahoe and adds another $14M to build more.
Methanol
Maersk signs long-term bio-methanol deal with Chinese supplier - Offtake agreement with LONGi Green Energy Technology, now Maersk has reached 50% of its methanol dual-fuel fleet’s demand in 2027.
Maersk completes first methanol conversion of large container ship infamous for deadly fire - Retrofitting a 2017-built vessel to be dual-fuelled, not only with new fuel tanks, fuel preparation room, fuel supply system but also extending the vessel by 15 meters to accommodate for the fuel tanks. A trial-ship, as one can do when ones got 700 vessels..
Fujian Guohang goes green with dual-fuel methanol switch on kamsarmax newbuilds - Eight newbuilds turned to dual-fuel engines, at an additional cost of $6.24m per ship (on top of the original cost of $36.5m) - optionality is expensive.
Nuclear
Why nuclear propulsion will be better - TL;DR: Interesting view on how the future with nuclear-powered ships can look, including the (ever-increasing) desperate need for qualified seafarers (or here; Steam engineers), however its a lot of “should” and “fair to assume”.
Biofuels
CMA CGM strikes biomethane deal to help fuel $18bn green fleet - Signs a €100m initial funding deal to secure biomethane from SUEZ, which will lead to production of up to 100k tonnes of biomethane by 2030.
Ship engines develop allergy to cashew nut fuel - Reports are coming out on several ships running on fuel made by cashew nutshells are experiencing sludging, injector failure, system deposits and corrosion on equipment. A cheap drop-in biofuel not approved by OEMs, now recommended to be avoided.
Emissions Capture
Shipyards advance designs as CO2 shipping gains oxygen - The infrastructure around large-scale CCUS is underway, here with the Northern Lights project, a JV between Shell, TotalEnergies and Equinor.
Scrubber installation costs plummet - Dropping from a top of $1.3m in 2020 to $800k this year, citing an installed base of 29% (of GT) but with only 1 in 4 newbuildings coming out with scrubbers these days. And, countries (noted here, Sweden and Denmark) are introducing scrubber bans due to toxic discharges.
Fuel Quality & Procurement
XMAR launches bunker trading platform - Launches in a closed pilot phase, connecting users with a network of over 1,500 verified suppliers across 500 ports. Includes “30-day financing and simplified order management”.
Digital bunkering trial launched in Port of Rotterdam - ZeroNorth and Vitol to complete its first trials on 3-4 bunker deliveries over a 4 week period, with Rotterdam aiming to become the first in Europe to digitalise bunkering after Singapore mandated and implemented the use of eBDN.
ICYMI
Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation signs first shipyard partner - Hanwha Ocean signs 5-year deal to advance in the areas of low and zero-carbon fuels, energy efficiency technologies and onboard carbon capture.
Thank you for mansplaining gender equality. Next time, read the room - A man on a panel at WISTA’s 50 year anniversary saying there is no more need for WISTA (paraphrasing here, of course) - in an industry where conferences are overwhelmingly dominated by men.
Maritime venture financing landscape mapped by Marine Money - Analysing 250+ deals, they have mapped out the financing landscape across stages.
Gigantic emissions control area proposed - In addition to the recently approved ECAs of the Canadian Arctic and Norwegian Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and now Atlantic ECA, covering the coasts of Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland, UK, Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland.
CMA CGM Startup Awards - Four startups in the maritime sector; Aerleum (CO2 to e-fuels production), Elonroad (electric charging system via rail), GBMS (ship motions measurements and alerts to crew) and zero44 (regulatory management software).
Tidbits and food for thought around start-ups and ventures
Elon Musk's Vision for Mars: The Advent of Marslink and Beyond - Not just getting wifi to the remote parts of the oceans, but also planning to get wifi to Mars.
Logistics Automation Winners Will Be Services, Not Software - A venture lab building a service-company for back-office logistics powered by AI. Could be seen in relation to this $250bn-sized market report from a16z, on Intelligent Automation: “RIP to RPA”:
Happy week!