Thursday, May 25, 2023

Minto Metals shutters Yukon copper mine

North of 60 Mining News - May 15, 2023

Looking across a mining pit and tailings facility to the Minto camp and mill.

Minto Metals Corp.

An aerial view of Minto prior to Pembridge Resources' 2019 acquisition of the copper mine in Canada's Yukon.

Yukon takes over, hires JDS Mining to maintain site; mine closure may sink Minto Metals and Pembridge.

Inundated by the forces of nature and finance, Minto Metals Corp. is shuttering operations at its Minto copper mine in Canada's Yukon.

"Needless to say, ceasing operations at the Minto mine was an extremely difficult and disappointing decision, that was not taken lightly," said Minto Metals President and CEO Chris Stewart.

Unable to continue to meet its financial obligations and safely operate the mine, Minto Metals has handed the keys to the Yukon government, which has already hired JDS Mining to ensure environmental protection is maintained at the Minto mine site.

"We are acting responsibly in coordination with the Yukon Government to avoid any damage to the environment," Stewart added.

In April, Yukon Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources John Streicker directed Minto Metals to begin transferring water into one of the previously mined open pits if the available storage capacity in the tailings management facility drops below 300,000 cubic meters, which is about 79.25 million gallons.

The governmental directive was issued to both mitigate potential short-term environmental risks and ensure longer-term operations at Minto.

The added costs and potential operational disruptions associated with the directive was the final straw for Minto Metals, which was already having difficulties paying back loans made by its parent company, London-based Pembridge Resources PLC.

JDS Mining, a contract miner familiar with Minto and experienced with mine site care and maintenance in the Yukon, has been mobilized to continue with water treatment and management to ensure the environment remains protected.

"We are working closely with the contractor and the Selkirk First Nation to ensure that the environment remains protected at all times," said Streicker. "Swift action will support the continuity of environmental protection at the site."

The Yukon government is utilizing financial security for the Minto mine to pay JDS Mining for care and maintenance of the site until the end of June, with the option to extend as needed.

"We support responsible mining across the territory," Streicker added. "I recognize that this is a challenging time for Minto employees, subcontractors, and the community."

Pembridge plummets

Short of a quick financial rescue, the shuttering of the Minto copper mine likely means insolvency for both Minto Metals and Pembridge Resources.

In 2019, Pembridge agreed to buy the idled Minto mine from Capstone Mining Corp. for US$20 million. The London-based company reopened and operated the mine until the formation of Minto Metals at the end of 2021.

As a publicly listed Canadian company, it was expected that Minto Metals would be able to pay back Pembridge with cash flow from the operation and money raised on the stock exchange, if needed.

Only about six months after going public, however, Minto Metals had to invest an extra C$8 million (US$5.9 million) into a water treatment plant with the capacity to handle a winter accumulation of snow in the Yukon that was 417% above normal.

"With our investment into the water treatment plant over the past twelve months, we are in a much better position to treat and discharge larger volumes of water coming into spring freshet this year," Stewart said upon the Yukon directive in April. "Although water treatment is very capital intensive, we are prepared to allocate the necessary resources to ensure any water events do not put the company out of compliance with this order."

Less than a month later, however, Minto Metals decided to hand over operations to the territorial government.

This means that it is highly unlikely that Minto Metals will be unable to make the roughly C$250,000 monthly installments needed to repay the C$2 million owed to Pembridge this year.

Given that its investment in Minto Metals accounts for roughly 90% of Pembridge's assets, the prospect that there will be no cash flowing from the Yukon copper miner will likely sink the London-based company.

In a May 15 release, Pembridge said it has a US$350,000 of short-term liabilities but only about US$126,000 of cash.

Barge carries truck loaded with copper concentrate across Yukon River.

Capstone Copper Corp.

Barge ferries a truck with two trailers of copper concentrate from the Minto Mine across the Yukon River en route to Japan.

Following the weekend news that Minto Metals is shutting down operations at the Yukon copper mine, Pembridge's share price plummeted to 30 British pound sterling (US37.5 cents), 79% lower than the previous closes of 1.45 British pound sterling (US$1.81) per share.

"Minto is unlikely to be able to repay Pembridge as scheduled, despite all the support provided to Minto by its shareholders, including Pembridge," said Pembridge Resources Chairman and CEO Gati Al-Jebouri. "As a result of this material uncertainty to the company, the board has no option but to carefully assess the financial viability of the company, consider delisting from the London Stock Exchange as well as obtaining appropriate professional advice on the restructuring and insolvency options available."

ALASKA

BLM drags feet on Ambler Road decision

Announces a six-month delay on permit reevaluation decision

North of 60 Mining News -

Updated 5/25/2023

A headframe from historic exploration rises above a fall landscape at Bornite.

NANA Corp.

Bornite Camp sits atop a world-class copper-cobalt deposit at the western terminus of the proposed Ambler Road.

Despite the growing calls by Alaska Native tribal and municipal leaders for an expedited review of the Ambler Access Project, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced that it will take six extra months for it to complete a supplemental environmental impact statement for the proposed 211-mile road to the Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska.

"This unnecessary delay threatens a project that will provide much-needed jobs and economic growth for Alaskans, while also strengthening national security and expediting the transition to a clean energy economy that is supposedly a top priority of the Biden Administration," said Ramzi Fawaz, president and CEO of Ambler Metals, a company that plans to develop a copper-rich mine at the western terminus of the proposed Ambler Road.

Located about 200 miles west of the Dalton Highway, a lone transportation artery that connects Alaska's North Slope with the rest of the state, the Ambler Mining District is rich in high-grade deposits of copper, zinc, cobalt, and other metals critical to a world transitioning to clean energy.

Recognizing the need for surface access to unlock the rich mineral potential in the Ambler District, the U.S. Congress included special provisions in the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) that guaranteed the approval of a transportation corridor to this metals-rich region of Northwest Alaska.

Section 201 (4) of ANILCA reads, "Congress finds that there is a need for access for surface transportation purposes across the Western (Kobuk River) unit of the Gates of the Arctic National Preserve (from the Ambler Mining District to the Alaska Pipeline Haul Road) and the Secretary shall permit such access in accordance with the provisions of this subsection."

In 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service, both of which fall under the Interior Department, approved the federal authorizations needed to build a road that would meet the Congressional mandate to provide surface access to the Ambler District.

Early last year, however, BLM suspended the authorizations for further review.

The federal land manager cited a lack of adequate consultation with Alaska tribes and evaluation of potential impacts the road might have on subsistence uses as reasons to remand the previously issued authorizations.

This added review of the Ambler Road permits was originally slated to be finalized with a supplemental environmental impact statement record of decision by the end of this year. On May 19, however, BLM pushed the date for this decision out to mid-2024.

"Until last week's status report, the U.S. Department of the Interior consistently promised a ROD by the end of 2023," Fawaz said. "DOI now states the ROD is expected six months later, with no justification for the delay or assurances that there will be no further slippage."

For an infrastructure project in Alaska, this is roughly equivalent to a one-year delay due to the limited summer field season.

This postponement is frustrating for the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a quasi-state-owned corporation better known as AIDEA that plans to build the road and recoup the construction and maintenance costs from tolls charged to companies that develop mines in the district.

"This delay not only impacts AIDEA and our partners with additional costs, but it also impacts individuals, communities, and the State who would like to see the economic benefits, future jobs and revenue that come with construction and operation of the road," said Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority Executive Director Randy Ruaro.

These economic benefits were underscored by the Northwest Arctic and North Slope boroughs in a joint resolution urging the Interior Department to expedite its reevaluation of the Ambler Road permits.

In their joint resolution, these boroughs representing a combined 19 Alaska Native communities across 135,500 square miles of Alaska's northernmost reaches said the Ambler Road and mines it would enable has the potential to create more than 8,700 direct, indirect, and induced construction and operation jobs that would pay nearly $700 million in annual wages.

Map of the proposed route for the Ambler Access Project in Northwest Alaska.

Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority

The proposed 211-mile Ambler Road would provide access to the Ambler Metals' Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects and other deposits in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska.

Arctic, the first mine slated for development in the Ambler District, is expected to produce 1.93 billion pounds of copper, 2.24 billion lb of zinc, 334.8 million lb of lead, 423,000 ounces of gold, and 36 million oz of silver over an initial 13 years of mining.

Ambler Metals, a 50-50 joint venture between Trilogy Metals Inc. and South32 Ltd., is also advancing plans to develop a mine at Bornite, a world-class copper-cobalt deposit that lies on Alaska Native lands owned by NANA Corp.

The wider Ambler District hosts dozens of other deposits and prospects that would provide economic benefits to northern Alaska communities, revenues to the state, and a domestic supply of minerals critical to the U.S. and its transition to clean energy and transportation.

"Interior needs to stop dragging its feet and complete this process and allow this road to be built, as it is already required by federal law," Fawaz added.

Commodity bull Goldman says ‘we were wrong’ but sticks to view

The investment bank says its forecasts for major rises in raw materials this year hadn’t panned out so far, but calls for a major rally.

May 24, 2023 |

Dispatches From The Outlaw Ocean Episode 6: The Fish We Turn to Dust

This episode is the sixth installment in a 10-part short film series from The Outlaw Ocean Project. It stems from more than a decade of reporting by Ian Urbina exploring crime on the high seas. The series chronicles a gritty cast of characters including traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, shackled slaves and vigilante conservationists.

Gambia, like many of its West African neighbors, has embraced the lucrative production of fishmeal. But the booming aquaculture industry, widely hailed by conservationists as the best hope for slowing ocean depletion, is polluting waters, decimating fish stocks, and threatening the lives of millions worldwide.

In this episode Ian Urbina will investigate the impact of fishmeal factories and foreign trawlers in West Africa, exposing how a fifth of all marine life pulled from the sea ends up ground up to feed farmed fish and why solutions meant to combat ocean depletion could be accelerating the problem.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

Spoofed AIS Signals Form Symbol of Russian Invasion

Geospatial intelligence firm Geollect has identified a spoofed AIS pattern tracing out the "Z" symbol of the Russian invasion of Ukraine at a position off the coast of Crimea. It is the latest in a long string of spoofing incidents in the region, and the pattern has long been attributed to Russian government actors.

Remote GPS spoofing can trick a GPS receiving unit into calculating a false location. Among other applications, this form of signal interference can be used to defeat the GPS guidance systems of certain U.S.- and NATO-made drones and precision weapons. Russia is reportedly proficient in this form of electronic warfare.

There is a long history of GPS spoofing incidents near Russian and Russian-occupied areas of the Black Sea coastline, and it periodically affects shipping. Since a ship's AIS transponder broadcasts the location it receives from a GPS unit, a broad-scale GPS spoofing attack will displace the "location" that the ship broadcasts via AIS, producing results that can sometimes appear bizarre. In 2017, more than 20 ships reported that their GPS positions had been erroneously relocated 25 nm inland to the airport in Novorossiysk. Others at anchor appeared "clustered" in areas where there were no radar returns for ships.

Over the course of 2017-19, non-profit analytics group C4ADS catalogued about 10,000 similar incidents affecting 1,300 vessels, most in or around areas of Russian influence. The report also drew a correlation between the movements of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the mass spoofing events, noted contributor and cybersecurity expert Dana Goward.

In June and July 2021, three NATO warships - the Royal Navy's USS Defender, the U.S. Navy's USS Ross and a Royal Dutch Navy vessel - all had their locations spoofed to positions off Russian-occupied Crimea. The reason and culprit remain unknown.

This month, a large number of merchant ships in and around the Bystry Canal region of Ukraine had their AIS locations remotely spoofed to the coastal waters of Russian-occupied Crimea. However, instead of a random pattern or a cluster, the AIS positions form a clear "Z" shape, the de facto symbol of support for the Russian invasion. (This precision AIS spoofing could also be performed in a simpler manner by transmitting false AIS signals, supplementing the ships' accurate AIS transmissions with corrupted duplicates.)

"It is highly likely that this is a deliberate information operation by a pro-Russian actor (possibly Russian military psychological operations) ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive and/or in celebration of Russia's proclaimed victory over Bakhmut," assessed Geollect.

The pattern began to show up on AIS on the 14th, and strengthened from May 19-21. Putin declared victory over Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut on May 22. In a clear sign of spoofing, merchant vessel "speeds" between these erroneous AIS positions were as high as 100 knots.

Chinese Hackers Target US Infrastructure Including Maritime Networks

Chinese cyber attack — US security agencies and Microsoft warned the new Chinese attack focuses on infrastructure including the maritime sector

The United States joined by its counterparts in the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, warned on Wednesday of “stealthy and targeted malicious activity,” focused on a broad range of computer networks including the maritime and transportation industries coming from a state-sponsored actor based in China. Microsoft said that it had detected the activity saying they believe it could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and the Asia region in the future.

The New York Times reports that the U.S. first became aware of the activity in February and has been working to analyze the extent of the incursion and damage done to systems. They are reporting that the attack focused on assets in Guam and the United States, highlighting the strategic role Guam plays for the U.S. military in its efforts in Asia, including the defense of Taiwan.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with its partners in law enforcement and security, as well as Microsoft detailed the nature of the attack and steps that should be taken. They reported that it appears to be impacting organizations ranging from the communications, manufacturing, utility, transport, construction, maritime, government, information technology, and education sectors. Microsoft said it has notified targeted or compromised customers, but said the nature of the attack is both difficult to detect and mitigate because it infected valid accounts and uses a technique known as “living off the land.” Affected accounts will need to be closed or altered.

“For years, China has conducted aggressive cyber operations to steal intellectual property and sensitive data from organizations around the globe,” said Jen Easterly, CISA Director. “Today’s advisory highlights China’s continued use of sophisticated means to target our nation’s critical infrastructure, and it gives network defenders important insights into how to detect and mitigate this malicious activity.”

The attack is being carried out by a company known as Volt Typhoon, which Microsoft reports has been active since mid-2021. Microsoft explained that the attack works by trying to blend into normal network activity by routing traffic through compromised small office and home office network equipment. It seeks to collect data, archive the data, and maintain persistence, giving Microsoft “moderate confidence” that it is there to disrupt systems in the future.

News of this cybersecurity incident comes as the number of attacks from various sources increases on the maritime sector. The U.S. Coast Guard issued a separate alert yesterday warning of ongoing email phishing and malware intrusion attempts that targeted commercial vessels. It reported that cyber adversaries are attempting to gain sensitive information including the content of an official Notice of Arrival (NOA) using email addresses that pose as an official Port State Control authority. The Coast Guard has also received reports of malicious software designed to disrupt shipboard computer systems.

Various political factions in recent weeks have also raised concerns over the Chinese-manufactured cargo cranes used in most ports around the world. A legislative proposal has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives calling for a ban on Chinese-manufactured cranes and Chinese software despite a response from the American Association of Port Authorities highlighting that despite the “sensationalized claims” there is no evidence of the cranes being used to harm or track port operations.

The U.S. is not alone in being targeted. In January 2023, DNV’s ShipManager Service was attacked forcing the company to take the system offline for weeks. More than 7,000 vessels worldwide DNV reported were o the system with their access to the network suspended. It took till mid-March before the ships were brought back online with DNV reporting at the time that work to resume the full scope of service was still ongoing.

The Limits on Australia's Plans for a Nuclear Shipbuilding Industry

If the past two generations of submarine building projects in Adelaide did not create a lasting, flourishing industry, why should this one?

Moving an Astute-class nuclear-powered attack submarine from the BAE Systems construction hall at Barrow-in-Furness in the United Kingdom in 2014 (BAE Systems via Ministry of Defence)

[By John Edwards]

Enthusing about Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine project, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese drew an analogy with the creation of an Australian car industry after the Second World War. As the car industry “helped drive advanced manufacturing” in Australia, so too the submarine project will be a “catalyst for jobs, innovation and growth”. In the Prime Minister’s telling, the submarine project is an industry policy innovation designed to create a new high technology base for Australian manufacturing, a frequently expressed Albanese government aim.

The Prime Minister is surely right that if Australia could build a motor vehicle industry when its population was a third of today’s, when its economic size was a tenth of today’s, it can now build nuclear-powered submarines. Admittedly, there are plenty of problems. Australia today does not have the engineering skills, the familiarity with nuclear propulsion, or the means to store highly enriched spent uranium. But with American and British help, with sufficient money and determination, all these needs and more can be met and a new industry of making and maintaining nuclear-powered submarines can be created, just as a car industry was created over 70 years ago.

The more troubling aspect of Albanese’s analogy is that Australia no longer has a car industry. Controlled by overseas-owned car makers, the Australian industry was never very interested in exports. As time went by, as Japan and then Korea became major producers, as the efficient size of global car production lines increased, as research and development costs increased for major producers, the Australian car industry became less and less competitive. It survived only behind high tariff barriers. Australian cars were among the most expensive in the world.

In the end the Australian car industry fell behind changing market demand for compact sedans, and later for SUVs. Loved in the 1950s, by the 1990s the Australian-made four door six-cylinder sedan was no longer wanted. High Australian wages were not the problem. By then wages in Japan and South Korea were equal to or better than in Australia, and in any case, robots were replacing workers. The problem was the lack of scale in an industry that did not seek a world market.

What was true for the car industry will be even more so for the Australian nuclear-powered submarine industry. Dependent on their patents, their intellectual property licenses, their continuing technology innovations, confined by the very war superiority that its advocates say nuclear-powered submarines possess, the Australian submarine industry will never be permitted by its American and British sponsors to be an export industry. It will build eight submarines for the Australian government, and then become a maintenance business. Long before the last boat is delivered, the business will be winding down.

It might become a hub for new technology industries, but probably won’t. Nuclear propulsion is after all now a very old technology. The first nuclear-powered submarine was launched just on 70 years ago. By the time Australian built nuclear-powered submarines are launched the technology will be over a century old. Australia will anyway acquire only bits of the technology. The nuclear reactors will be made elsewhere, the weapons, communications and control systems made elsewhere, and the vessels designed elsewhere.

The submarine project is a cut above a flat pack assembly business, though perhaps not all that much above. If the past two generations of submarine building projects in Adelaide did not create a major flourishing industry which outlasted the submarine projects, why should this one?

It is certainly true there will be a lot of valuable high technology skills employed in building submarines in Australia, including frontier IT skills, project management, materials science, and other commercial skills involved in such a complex and expensive project. These skills will be employed in making submarines, however, not in businesses with a prospect of a sustained commercial future.

The skills will be diverted from civilian commercial uses. The cost of the project will be the opportunities missed for deploying those skills elsewhere. The more complex the project, the higher the demand for advanced skills, the bigger the loss to Australia’s non-defense economy.

In these respects the submarine project reflects the vast change in the relationship between defense industries and commercial industries over the last half century. Once the leaders, defense industries are now followers. In the United States the military pioneered in funding and exploring new technologies that had defense applications but led to the creation of new commercial industries. These included jet engines, nuclear energy, semiconductors, the internet, space satellites, and navigation systems. Today commercial research and development vastly exceeds military research and development, with the military far more often adapting commercial developments than the other way around.

Whatever the arguments for Australia building nuclear-powered submarines, the creation of commercial spin-offs, of new high technology commercial industries, should not be among them.

John Edwards is a Senior Fellow at the Lowy Institute and an Adjunct Professor with the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy at Curtin University. He is also a board member of the industry superannuation fund Cbus and of Frontier Advisors.

This article appears courtesy of The Lowy Interpreter and may be found in its original form here.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

Designs for Battery Tankers to Transport Renewable Energy by 2026

Design details were announced for a Japanese concept to develop battery tankers that would make up the backbone for a power transmission network distributing renewable energy from areas with high potential generation to areas with high demand. It expands on earlier concepts presented by Japanese startup PowerX Manufacturing, which says it now expects the first vessels to commence service by 2026.

The first Battery Tanker “X” will be a 459-foot vessel equipped with 96 containerized marine batteries, providing a total capacity of 241MWh. According to the company, the battery system is highly scalable, allowing for the installation of additional batteries to create larger electric transport vessels, including its concept for the Power Ark 1000, a concept vessel that would carry 100 grid batteries able to transport up to 200MWh of power from the wind farm, or larger sizes to meet specific mission requirements. The proof of concept vessel targets a range of approximately 180 miles and would travel at a speed of 10 knots. It would take three hours to charge, and previously the company said it planned for the vessel to be fully autonomous in its operations.

The onboard battery system is based on a proprietary module design, using lithium iron phosphate battery cells that the company reports will ensure a lifespan of over 6,000 cycles. The system includes dedicated gas emission control and fire suppression mechanisms to ensure safety. Real-time monitoring of the battery system, charging controllers, and power conversion systems will further enhance safety measures. The batteries will be manufactured in-house and are expected to commence delivery in mid-2024 after obtaining international ship classification certifications.

A new company called Ocean Power Grid will be established in the third quarter of 2023 to advance the maritime power transmission business utilizing the battery tanker concept. This company will be responsible for owning, selling, and operating the battery tankers both in Japan and abroad. They currently project completion by 2025, with domestic and international field testing planned to commence in 2026.

The battery tanker would be available to store and transport power from offshore renewable power generation sites as well as to transfer power between locations on shore. The company’s concept calls for retrofitting decommissioned or idle thermal power plants located near ports into charge/discharge points for the battery tankers. The power could be offloaded and transmitted to users via grid connections on the land, enabling further effective use of renewable energy.

Given the current energy density of lithium-ion battery cells, the company says that the battery tanker is an optimal solution for short-distance maritime power transmission from land to land, complementing existing inter-regional grid transmission lines. As the energy density of batteries improves and their cost decreases, it is expected that longer-distance maritime transmission from offshore wind power plants to the land will become feasible.

The introduction of battery tankers the company reports will establish new power transmission networks across the sea, promoting the storage, supply, and utilization of renewable energy. The ship-based solution they said in detailing the concept resolves issues such as long downtime from undersea cable malfunctions and repairs, as well as the high costs associated with ultra-high voltage connections and substations. It will enable the installation of offshore wind farms in areas where undersea cable deployment is a challenge.

Proof of concept vessel would be completed in 2025 and begin testing in 2026 (PowerX)

As part of today’s announcement, they also reported agreements with Kyushu Electric Power Co. and the City of Yokohama. They will explore using the battery and transport system in the port of Yokohama to support local companies in the port and promote the storage, supply, and utilization of renewable energy. They will explore with the power company how the technology can be used to address existing limitations in the capacity of grid systems that connect different regions.

Previously, the company reported it had entered into a capital and business alliance with Imabari Shipbuilding to jointly develop the prototype of the vessel. Japanese shipping company NYK is also participating in the development and the planned testing of the battery-carrying ship.

Retrofit for First Hydrogen-Powered Inland Containership Completed

H2 Barge 1 recently completed sea trials after the first hydrogen retrofit project (FPS)

The first hydrogen-powered inland containership developed in a multi-year demonstration project was officially commissioned today in Rotterdam. The vessel renamed H2 Barge 1 joins a small but growing number of hydrogen-fueled vessels being introduced to demonstrate the path to zero emissions.

The vessel owned by Future Proof Shipping of the Netherlands will be carrying containers between Rotterdam and Antwerp. It will be under charter to BCTN Network of Inland Terminals on behalf of Nike EMEA. Making the trip several times a week, the vessel is expected to eliminate 2,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.

The retrofit project took five years from the initial plans to final approval and delivery notes Holland Shipyards Group which carried out the work for the project. The project was supported by grant funding from the Interreg North Sea Region Programme (Zero Emission Ports North Sea – ZEM Ports NS), Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), Port of Rotterdam and Expertis-en InnovatieCentrum Binnenvaart, to demonstrate the retrofit potential for shipping. Lloyd’s Register provided the classification with the shipyard explaining because there is no comprehensive framework of rules, the retrofit was performed on a risk-based approach.

The project worked with Future Proof’s FPS Maas, a 360-foot barge. After the conversion the vessel has a capacity of 200 TEU and there are provisions for an additional push barge according to the shipyard.

The contract for the conversion was awarded in March 2021 calling for replacing the internal combustion technology with hydrogen. This included removing both the main engine and gearbox and installing a new modular propulsion system. The new system consists of electric motors, hydrogen tanks, a PEM fuel cell for converting the hydrogen into electricity, and a battery storage system. The compressed hydrogen tanks, the fuel cells, and the battery system are separate units housed in containers and can be removed for maintenance.

Hydrogen system was installed in three containers at the rear of the cargo area (FPS)

The hydrogen and fuel cell system were installed in the cargo space of the vessel. The hydrogen is placed above the fuel cell system in two 40-foot containers. They provide a capacity for 900 kg of sustainably generated hydrogen under a pressure of 300 bar. H2 Barge 1 is now equipped with an 800 kW electric motor, powered by a 750 VDC-bus. The DC-bus is fed by three fuel cells, each with a maximum power of 300 kW, and 1037 kWh Lithium-Ion batteries.

The vessel arrived at the shipyard approximately 10 months ago, and Holland Shipyards reports that after removing the existing drivetrain, all the vessel’s systems were updated to suit the new drivetrain and H2 installation. The engine room and bow thruster were modified to accommodate electrical switchboards and battery rooms, while the three fuel cell areas were constructed in the cargo area. Other work included adjustments to the cooling system for the new layout and all ventilation systems were modified.

H2 Barge 1 will be supplying inland transport for Nike between the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp (FPS)

“We have been working for a couple of years now to ensure we tread more lightly on the planet,” said Richard Klatten, CEO of Future Proof Shipping during today’s ceremonies in Rotterdam. “This shipping project proves that moving cargo with zero emissions and zero impact is possible, and we hope it accelerates the industry to follow in Nike’s footsteps and move to zero.”

The process for the conversion of Future Proof Shipping’s second barge is also underway at the Holland Shipyards Group. The FPS Waal is expected to arrive at the shipyard later this year for a conversion lasting approximately five months. The shipyard reports that long lead components such as the six Ballard FC WAVE fuel cells, the AYK batteries, electric propulsion motor, have been ordered as they prepared to begin cutting steel for the new technical space. The second ship will have a fuel cell with a capacity of 1.2 MW and an innovative cooling and ventilation system will be installed.

Future Proof Shipping aims to build and operate a fleet of 10 zero-emission inland and short-sea vessels over the next five years

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