New Project Aims to Capture Carbon Emissions Onboard Oil Tanker

A consortium made up of global energy and shipping organisations announced on Wednesday that they will start a project to build and test a carbon capture system onboard an oil tanker for the next two years.

The project onboard a medium-range tanker owned by shipping firm Stena Bulk is targetting at least 30% absolute carbon dioxide capture, or about 1,000 kilogramme per hour, the companies said in a joint press release on the sidelines of the Singapore International Bunkering Conference and Exhibition (SIBCON) 2022.

It is being carried out by the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) in Singapore, the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), Stena Bulk, manufacturing company Alfa Laval, the American Bureau of Shipping, The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and Deltamarin, which provides ship services for marine and offshore industries.

This comes as global shipping and energy companies face increasing pressure to decarbonise and meet net-zero emissions by 2050.

"GCMD views shipboard carbon capture as one of the mid-term solutions needed to help the maritime sector to decarbonise," said GCMD CEO Lynn Loo.

The first phase of the project will involve conceptual design and front-end engineering design study (FEED) of the carbon capture system which will be completed in the first quarter of 2023, the companies said.

This will be followed by the engineering, procurement, and construction of a prototype shipboard carbon capture system, and onshore commissioning, they added. 

The last phase of the project will be focused on integrating the carbon capture system with the tanker and conducting sea trials, the companies said.

 (Reuters - Reporting by Isabel Kua; Editing by Florence Tan and Ana Nicolaci da Costa)