Four New Partners Join Silk Alliance Singapore
The Silk Alliance continues to grow with the addition of Yara Clean Ammonia, the Methanol Institute, MPC Container Ships and the NUS Centre for Maritime Studies.
The new partners join following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and Lloyd’s Register (LR) Maritime Decarbonisation Hub for the Silk Alliance as they plan to support the proposed project aimed at the decarbonisation of a regional shipping corridor centred on the container trades.
The Silk Alliance is focused on a regional fleet, predominantly bunkering in Singapore that also trades across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The onboarding of Yara Clean Ammonia and the Methanol Institute will accelerate efforts to better understand the fuel infrastructure considerations and bunkering capacity development required for zero-emission shipping.
The initiative aims to allow the fuel supply and fleet sides to overcome the chicken-or-egg dilemma in generating demand for low-to-zero carbon fuels.
The academic partnership with the NUS Centre for Maritime Studies allows scope for further research work into technological solutions for the green corridor cluster, which complements ongoing scientific assessments of climate change risks undertaken by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation NUS Institute for Public Understanding of Risk.
Charles Haskell, Director of the LR Maritime Decarbonisation Hub, said: "The new Silk Alliance members can support the concerted effort of all our cross-industry partners with the aim of decarbonising the shipping corridor cluster in Singapore and the intra-Asia region. Through the implementation of the initiative, we aim for a spillover effect to the wider industry that will generate the momentum needed for shipping to fulfil its 2050 reduced emissions target."
Yara Clean Ammonia’s joining follows a June 2023 announcement of an MoU with Bunker Holding Group establishing the intention to collaborate to accelerate the development of the market for clean ammonia as a shipping fuel. This agreement connects two key elements of the supply chain needed to achieve the use of clean ammonia as a shipping fuel, namely a global supplier of clean ammonia and the largest bunker supplier today in terms of end users.
