On 17 September 2021 Navigator Gas was awarded a new Approval in Principle (AiP) for an ammonia fuelled gas carrier design from classification society DNV.
An industrywide consortium, including MAN Energy solutions, Babcock International, and the Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA), has collaborated with Navigator Gas to achieve the Approval in Principle (AiP) from DNV.
The awarding of the AiP was announced as part of London International Shipping week 2021.
The new gas carrier design has been awarded the AiP based on the special features notation (GF NH3) under DNV’s new rules for the use of ammonia as fuel in gas carriers.
DNV, alongside the NMA, reviewed the design and relevant documentation and found no potential showstoppers to its realisation.
“Navigator Gas been discussing Ammonia as a fuel with our consortium partners since 2018, when this topic was on the fringes of discussions surrounding decarbonisation and the use of alternative fuels,” said Paul Flaherty, Technical Advisor to Navigator Gas.
“Those early discussions on feasibility led to the completion of a comprehensive HAZID in early 2019, which remains as valid today as it was then. This has also been used as the base safety case during our AiP discussions with DNV. Since our discussions began, we have witnessed an exponential increase in the number of projects around the globe looking at Hydrogen and Ammonia as carbon free source of energy.
“We have also been engaging with our customers and business partners to discuss their carbon free shipping requirements for transporting Blue/Green Ammonia to their customers.”
A dual-fuel, two-stroke ammonia engine is expected to be commercially available for large-scale ocean-going ships by 2024, followed by a retrofit package to make existing maritime vessels capable of running on ammonia by 2025.
Caption: Navigator Gas, the owner and operator of the world’s largest fleet of handysize liquefied gas carriers, has received a new AiP from DNV for an ammonia fuelled gas carrier. (Image courtesy of Navigator Gas)
