It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, July 03, 2023
Hydro One reaches tentative agreement with Power Workers' Union
BNN Bloomberg
Rows of power lines are shown which people use for electricity in Mississauga, Ont., on Monday, August 19, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
HYDRO ONE LTD (H:CT)
37.850.61 (1.64%)
As of: 07/03/23 7:49:51 am REAL-TIME QUOTE. Prices update every five seconds for TSX-listed stocks
Hydro One Inc. says it has reached tentative agreements covering two contracts with the Power Workers' Union, which represents the company's front-line workers.
Details of the proposed settlements were not immediately available.
The power utility says the main agreement covers front-line staff, while the customer service operations collective agreement includes staff in customer facing roles.
Union members will vote on the tentative agreements by the end of July.
Once ratified, the new contracts will run until Sept. 30, 2025.
Hydro One is Ontario's largest electricity transmission and distribution provider.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 30, 2023.
Lynx pilot negotiations could drive up prices: Expert
Ben Cousins, BNN Bloomberg
A Lynx Air plane is seen in the handout image. (Lynx Air)
With the pilots of Lynx Air paving the way for collective bargaining, one industry expert expects a deal push prices higher on the discount airline.
Robert Kokonis, president and managing director of AirTrav Inc., said Lynx pays a lot of the same fees as the major airlines, meaning any concessions to the pilots would likely mean a rise in prices to maintain its narrow margins.
“I find it very interesting that their pilots are already pushing to join a union,” he told BNN Bloomberg Friday. “I would’ve thought from a company culture standpoint, we might not see that pressure for four or five years, so to see that now, it does raise the question as to why that’s happening.”
Looking ahead to the summer travel season, Kokonis said those booking on low-cost airlines such as Lynx need to be wary of the potential for lengthy delays, as those carriers don’t have the robust fleet and open seating to move the passengers around in the event of a mechanical issue.
“It’s just the reality of where we’re at,” he said.
Overall though, Kokonis does not expect the same travel chaos Canadians experienced last summer when some of the country’s airports were among the worst in the world for delays and cancellations.
“All my industry partners are telling me things are relatively good and quiet,” he said.
“Overall, (it) seems to be getting better and nowhere near the issues we had a year ago.”
Still, Kokonis is advising travellers to arrive early, particularly if you’re flying internationally.
Lynx Air president and CEO Merren McArthur to step down in September
The Canadian Press
Lynx Air CEO Merren McArthur, one of the first women to head a national commercial airline in Canada, poses for a portrait in Calgary, Alta., Friday, Jan. 28, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Lynx Air says president and CEO Merren McArthur is stepping down for personal reasons.
The Calgary-based airline says its founding CEO will continue in the role until the end of September to allow time to find her replacement.
Lynx Air says McArthur led the airline to its first flight launch in April 2022, and through a successful first year of operations.
Board chair Bill Franke says in a press release that McArthur saw the airline's launch and rapid growth during one of the most challenging periods in aviation history.
McArthur says it has been a great privilege to lead at Lynx Air, but that it's time for her to return to her family in Australia.
The budget airline has been expanding, announcing two new routes for the summer earlier this year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 29, 2023.
What is the future of remote work?
Daniel Johnson , BNN Bloomberg
Jun 30, 2023
As many companies are looking to bring employees back into the office, one tech executive said the balance of power has shifted more toward employees than ever before and companies should adapt in order to attract and retain top talent.
Dan Burgar, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Frontier Collective, a Vancouver-based organization representing the interest of the technology industry, said employees are now shaping what the return to the office will look.
“Right now we're seeing this landscape where employees actually have more power than they have ever had before,” Burgar said while speaking at the Collision tech conference in Toronto on Thursday.
According to Burgar, employees are dictating what the working arrangement will look like and the benefits they can get. He said his organization has spoken with a couple of startups that tried to implement four or five days in the office but received pushback.
Bill Smith, founder and chief executive officer at Landing, said during the conference Thursday that determining who has leverage in return-to-office discussions depends on the role and ethos of the company.
“It depends on the role and there's going to be opportunities created on both sides, there is going to be lots of remote first opportunities for entry-level roles all the way up to the highest level of engineering roles,” he said.
However, widespread remote work policies could have broader implications for the labour market, according to Smith.
“If you’re an entry-level role, one of the concerns we have in the U.S. is, if you can work from anywhere are we going to start hiring people in lower cost countries,” he said.
Burgar said that the current shift in working arrangements has a number of people working in the office for about two days a week in a hybrid situation and are finding “they’re able to get a lot more heads-down work done.”
He said a lot of large tech companies are asking employees to come into the office about two to three days a week, and he believes companies will need to continue in order to attract the “best and brightest.”
However, with employees out of the office for large parts of the week, Burgar said those employees are missing out on “watercooler conversations,” where problems could be solved “on the fly.”
As many companies adopt hybrid arrangements with their workforce, Smith said that in some cases it is the “worst of both” because “you can’t live somewhere else.” He said you have to live in one location and go into the office a few days a week and miss out on “those water cooler conversations” during the other days.
Smith said that the “pendulum is kind of swinging back” and that people are looking to connect with one another, which is difficult to do over a screen. He said this is bringing some people back into the office.
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
As hybrid and remote working arrangements continue, Burgar said this will drastically change the landscape of commercial real estate.
“Commercial real estate, I think as we know it, is dead,” he said.
However, Smith says that despite the sentiment to “bash on commercial real estate,” people are not being called back into work to save the sector. He said developers are “extremely creative” and will be able to find new sources of demand.
“And so all of these people that own these large office buildings that are currently empty or 50 per cent utilized, they're going to find new ways to utilize those buildings and it's probably going to look like a mix of residential and third places and maybe hotel and office and all together,” he said.
“So I think the next decade we're going to see a lot of exciting things in commercial real estate that's been forced by the change of the way that we all work.”
Collision conference 2023: Targeted layoffs do not mean recession says EY
Daniel Johnson , BNN Bloomberg
Jun 28, 2023
Despite some concerns about the overall health of the economy, an associate partner at Ernst and Young’s consulting arm said a recession has not yet occurred, despite some volatility.
Speaking at the Collison tech conference in Toronto Tuesday, Manos Xenos, an associate partner at EY-Parthenon, said that his group takes a contrarian view whereby current economic circumstances are not a downturn, “at least not yet.”
“For us to call something a recession in the technical terms, you need to have a three Ds,” he said.
For this criteria to be met, Xenos said you need to have “quite a deep recession,” diffusion across multiple sectors as well as duration.
Xenos said that has not occurred across multiple quarters, despite layoffs that have occurred in the tech sector, which he said have “been quite substantial.” However, he said he is not seeing layoffs occurring in the typical way horizontal staff cuts occur.
Additionally, he said executives are largely “not willing to part” with existing talent.
“These are all very targeted layoffs that we're seeing and unemployment is still quite persistently low in terms of historical records,” Xenos said.
On the supply side of the economy, Xenos said shortages persist due to an “overhang” from COVID-19 that is still driving demand.
‘“While we're seeing pockets of shakiness in the economy, we're still not calling it, from our world, a recession,” Xenos said.
Meanwhile, the economy is experiencing tightening credit conditions, which is resulting in lengthier due diligence processes, according to Xenos.
Amid higher high-interest rates, Canada’s banking regulator increased its capital requirements for the nation’s major lenders. Earlier this month the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) brought its domestic stability buffer to 3.5 per cent of risk-weighted assets.
“One of the things that we are personally worried about, I guess is more on the availability of capital from the financial institutions. And we're seeing OSFI come out pretty strong with reserve requirements for the banks,” Xenos said.
PRIVATE MARKETS
Devon MacMurray, the vice-president of mergers and acquisitions at Ernst and Young, said during the conference Tuesday that there is a disconnect between the way private and public markets are reacting to the current economic circumstances.
Currently, there is a “bit of a correction,” MacMurray said, but “people don’t think it’s necessarily going to last super long.”
The private market, he said, is still seeing “a good level of activity.”
Can AI help farmers adapt to extreme weather?
Holly McKenzie-Sutter, BNN Bloomberg
Jun 29, 2023
Business leaders thinking about how to harness tech to respond to climate change took the stage at the Collision conference in Toronto Wednesday, including a talk about how artificial intelligence can help hard-hit farmers adapt to extreme weather.
Max Evans, co-founder and chief technology officer of Climate AI, explained to the crowd at a panel how his company uses data science and AI to build high-resolution climate models.
The start-up also provides detailed data on extreme weather and sector-specific potential economic impacts to help businesses make informed decisions about their operations, he said, with more time to prepare for extreme events before they happen.
Agriculture is particularly impacted by extreme weather, Evans said, with some climate events having “100 per cent impact” on a farm’s operations. For example, harvests can be stranded due to limited water supplies or damaged by fires or floods.
“Agriculture feels the pain in a particular way,” Evans said. “As a founder you’re always looking for those pain points, and that’s where they exist.”
With the world “well on our way” to scientist-predicted “tipping points” of global warming, Evans said there’s a need for businesses adapt to a changing climate and make choices based on the new climate reality, rather than historic patterns.
Businesses around the world have a need for predictive climate models, Evans said, and the impact of extreme weather was evident in the conference’s host city.
Speakers addressed the gathered crowds in Toronto as wildfire haze clouded the skies and Environment Canada issued an air quality alert due to the raging fires in northeastern Ontario and Quebec.
Climate change was one of several focus areas at Collision, with a dedicated stage for planet-related tech.
From that set of speakers, agriculture and food production was a theme of Wednesday’s talks, with speakers discussing climate impact on fisheries, using solar energy for farming and showcasing plant-based proteins that aim to reduce the market share of the high-emitting beef industry.
Canada’s innovation minister also spoke about the government’s goals to capitalize on the growing green tech industry.
Even Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “godfather of AI,” who left a job at Google this year to warn of the potential dangers of the rapidly advancing technology, noted during a Collision presentation that climate change is one area where artificial intelligence can be used for good.
Evans takes a “pragmatic view” of the need to adapt to the new reality and “climate-proof” weather-impacted industries. He still sees a need to take efforts to mitigate climate change, despite its increasingly catastrophic effects on people’s lives – including within AI itself, by looking for more energy-efficient computing models.
“The more people think about climate change, the more they can act on it,” he said.
Young Canadians are taking climate change risks more seriously when buying homes
John Shmuel, Managing Editor, RATESDOTCA
Jun 30, 2023
Young Canadians are taking climate change into account when buying a home.
A new survey compiled by Leger for RATESDOTCA and BNN Bloomberg has found that 60 per cent of young homeowners (18-34) considered the potential effects of climate change in the location they were buying their home. That compares to 31 per cent of those 35-54, and just 27 per cent of those over the age of 55.
Major insurance companies around the world have been sounding the alarm for years about the rising costs of insuring homes in areas that are more at risk for extreme events fuelled by climate change, including floods and forest fires.
In the U.S., Florida and California have been two markets where many homeowners have been shocked to discover no insurance companies will insure them, or the ones that do, charge prices that are impossible for the average homeowner to afford. In May, State Farm announced it would stop issuing new insurance policies in California — not just in areas at risk of wildfires, but throughout the entire state.
Insurance companies cover the cost of paying out claims from the premiums they charge customers. If claims exceed premiums, then the insurance company is not a viable business. Unfortunately, the extreme weather events accelerated by human-induced climate change have led to rapidly rising claims for insurance companies.
One of the most valuable piece of insurance coverage for homeowners is the replacement value of your home. That means if your home burns down, the insurance company will pay to construct an equivalent structure. Unfortunately, construction costs have risen due to inflation, and the number of such claims are going up due to climate change. This is a growing problem for the industry and will increasingly raise costs for customers.
Unfortunately, even with all the risks, relatively few Canadians are taking out additional insurance endorsements to cover them in the event of extreme weather events that are now being worsened by climate change.
Only 12 per cent of those surveyed said they had taken out an additional endorsement, such as overland flooding, which can protect you in the event a nearby river or body of water overflows and floods your home. Another six per cent said they had taken out two or more additional policies.
Once again, younger homeowners were more likely to take out such policies. Twenty-six per cent of those aged 18-34 said they took out one or more policies, while only 15 per cent of those 34-54 had. Another 17 per cent of those aged 55 and over had taken out such policies.
One-in-three homeowners who have bought a home in the past two years have taken out an additional endorsement, compared to just 16 per cent of those who bought their home more than two years ago.
METHODOLOGY
An online survey. 1525 Canadians, 18+. Completed between June 2nd and June 5th, 2023, using Leger’s online panel. No margin of error can be associated with a non-probability sample (i.e. a web panel in this case). For comparative purposes, though, a probability sample of 1525 respondents would have a margin of error of ±2.5%, 19 times out of 20.
BNN Bloomberg has teamed up with RATESDOTCA to take the pulse of Canadians every month on key pocketbook issues as we strive to better understand how households are navigating COVID-19. This is the latest instalment in monthly special coverage.
Wind, Slow Steaming, and Fuels Could Half Ships' GHG Emissions by 2030
Delft reports shipping has the tools to reduce emissions between 28 to 47 percent by 2030 (file photo)
Shipping has the technical potential with the tools available today to cut its greenhouse gas emissions anywhere between a quarter to a half by 2030 according to a new independent report conducted by the respected consultancy CE Delft for four leading environmental groups. They argue that this can be achieved without significant financial costs providing the confirmation needed for the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) to act decisively at its upcoming meeting.
IMO member states are due to convene for a session in July 2023 that will adopt the revisions to the IMO’s declared strategy for greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2018, the IMO position has been that shipping will reduce emissions by 50 by 2050 relative to 2008.
Environmentalists, scientists, and many organizations argue that these goals are far too lax for an industry that accounts for three percent of the world’s emissions and rising. The EU for example came out last week saying the shipping industry is heading in the wrong direction and that the IMO needs to be more ambitious in its efforts.
Proposals being put forth in advance of the MEPC meeting are calling for faster reductions with some saying the industry must cut emissions by 50 percent over the next seven years to 2030. The most aggressive positions call for the total elimination of GHG emissions anywhere between 2040 and 2050. Against this background, the four groups, Transport & Environment, Seas at Risk, Ocean Conservancy, and Pacific Environment, asked CE Delft to estimate the maximum technical abatement potential by 2030 and the minimal remaining GHG emissions from shipping.
“Countries and shipping companies have raised real concerns about the technological and economic feasibility of achieving the 1.5°C-aligned goal of halving emissions by 2030,” highlights Delaine McCullough of the Ocean Conservancy. “This analysis clearly shows that these reductions are possible and that costs are not a barrier. The evidence couldn’t come at a better time. The IMO must not squander what may be the last best opportunity to put shipping on track to prevent a climate disaster.”
Delft in its report concludes that it is technically possible by gradually starting in 2025 to reduce shipping emissions in a range between 28 and 47 percent by 2030 relative to 2008 levels. Implementing these measures, the report concludes, would increase shipping costs between six and fourteen percent on average.
“The evidence shows that halving emissions by 2030 is technically possible and that the costs are manageable. What is needed is the political will. The IMO cannot afford to miss this opportunity,” said Faïg Abbasov, of the influential group Transport & Environment.
The report creates a broad range of scenarios using technical and operational abatement options that Delft highlights are available to the industry now. They call for the adoption of wind-assisted propulsion, speed reductions ranging between 20 and 30 percent for vessels that would result in emissions reductions, and between five and ten percent adoption of zero-GHG fuels. They factor into the analysis changes in fleet size to compensate for the reduction in capacity from slow steaming.
They calculate that just over half of the total reduction would come from operational measures including slow steaming, while wind-assisted propulsion and zero or near zero GHG fuels would each result in a quarter of the total reduction.
The cost impact varies in the different scenarios in part due to the level of fuel transition as well as the proportion of speed reduction. A 20 percent reduction in speed they report would be the highest cost compared to a 30 percent reduction. Similarly, the higher the percentage of alternative fuels the higher the cost impact.
The four organizations commissioning the research argue that it provides the evidence needed for MEPC to active to dramatically increase the IMO’s targets to reduce emissions. They contend the IMO has a historic opportunity and must act now if shipping is going to align with the broader environmental goals adopted in the Paris Agreement.
BASF and Yara Evaluate U.S. Gulf Coast Low-Carbon Blue Ammonia Project
BASF and Yara are exploring adding blue ammonia production to their current operations in Texas (BASF)
Chemical company BASF and Yara Clean Ammonia are exploring expanding their current relationship in producing ammonia used in fertilizer to also produce blue ammonia at a world-scale low-carbon production facility with carbon capture in the U.S. Gulf Coast region. The companies are collaborating on a joint study looking into the feasibility of developing and constructing a plant with a total annual capacity of 1.2 to 1.4 million tons to serve the growing global demand for low-carbon ammonia.
“Yara and BASF have successfully collaborated in the past and we are pleased to explore a new clean ammonia project together,” said Magnus Krogh Ankarstrand, President of Yara Clean Ammonia. “In line with Yara Clean Ammonia’s strategy, we are working systematically to develop asset-backed supply to decarbonize agriculture as well as serving new clean ammonia segments such as shipping fuel, power production and ammonia as a hydrogen carrier.”
BASF and Yara are long-standing collaboration partners operating a joint world-scale ammonia plant at BASF’s site in Freeport, Texas used in fertilizer. Founded in 1958, the plant in Freeport was BASF’s first manufacturing site in the U.S. and today consists of 27 plants employing more than 900 people.
The companies highlight that the product characteristics of blue ammonia are identical to conventionally produced ammonia. The product in known as blue ammonia because it is produced using natural gas or other renewables with the CO2 generated in the production process is captured and not released to the atmosphere. Blue ammonia is projected to play a significant role in the transition to alternative, less carbon-intensive products.
The concept for the additional manufacturing facility projects that approximately 95 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) generated from the production process would be captured and permanently stored in the ground. This would allow Yara to serve its customers with clean ammonia with a significantly reduced product carbon footprint. Yara is targeting maritime applications among its potential markets for ammonia.
BASF aims to reduce its absolute CO2 emissions by 25 percent by 2030 compared with 2018 and achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. For BASF, the new plant would act as backward integration to serve the company’s demand for low-carbon ammonia and would lower the carbon footprint of its ammonia-based products.
The companies plan to complete the feasibility study on the low-carbon blue ammonia production facility by end of 2023. Several other projects are also exploring the production of ammonia along what U.S. Gulf Coast for the new emerging markets for industrial applications and shipping.
New Crew Training Package Supports Adoption of Methanol as Marine Fuel
Methanol specialist GREEN MARINE joins Methanol Institute and provides training for crews onboard wave of dual-fuelled vessels
The Methanol Institute has welcomed multi-disciplinary methanol consultancy GREEN MARINE as its latest member.
The Denmark-headquartered company has recently finalised a specialist training programme for crews onboard Methanol dual-fuel vessels, supplementing baseline regulatory training requirements with practical, experience-based learning.
The scale of the crew training challenge presented by the fuels required for decarbonisation is at least as great as the technology hurdles the industry faces. A recent report commissioned by the Maritime Just Transition Task Force Secretariat predicts a rise in the number of seafarers needing training on alternative fuel technologies in the 2040s to between 310,000 and 750,000 people.
GREEN MARINE’s Asia team is participating in the development of rules and standards for Methanol bunkering in Singapore, including taking part in a panel of experts to establish policy and training. Stakeholders include local regulators and academics, industry associations and classification societies, in addition to bunker operators.
The crew training programme was created based on practical knowledge gathered over a decade of experience working on Methanol dual fuel vessels with services from design consultancy to newbuilding construction supervision, technical management and operations.
The curriculum, which can be delivered onboard, in a classroom or online, was developed to address the knowledge gaps between theoretical regulation and practical experience in the use of Methanol as marine fuel. GREEN MARINE is able to supplement regulatory baselines with real life experiences based on operational experience, emergency troubleshooting and the application of historical data.
“GREEN MARINE’s team members have played a significant role in the evolution of Methanol as a marine fuel - and in particular bunkering and onboard handling - since its earliest days,” said MI CEO Gregory Dolan. “We are very happy to have GREEN MARINE as a member and we look forward to working together in future to share its operational expertise and practical knowledge as the industry continues its transition to cleaner operations.”
“Our methanol specialists are captains and chief engineers with first-hand knowledge of working with Methanol as a fuel and how to ensure these dual fuel ships operate safely,” said Morten Jacobsen, CEO of GREEN MARINE. “Theoretical knowledge is little use in real life situations when you need to know what to do; we bridge that gap and provide practical knowledge to support crews in adopting this methanol dual fuel technology.”
Maersk is continuing with its commitment to the principle of only ordering newbuild vessels that can sail on green fuel consistent with its commitments to be net-zero by 2040. The company led the container shipping industry in 2021 with the first orders for dual-fuel methanol vessels and highlights the rapid growth in the orderbook for methanol-ready ships.
A.P. Moller - Maersk and China’s private shipyard Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group confirmed the order of six dual-fuel methanol-ready containerships. Maersk is calling the vessels “mid-sized” as they will have a capacity of 9,000 TEU. The rendering shows a conventional design with two islands, unlike the new design for the company's larger methanol-fueled containerships.
“For these six container vessels, we have chosen a design and vessel size which make them very flexible from a deployment point of view. This will allow these vessels to fill many functions in both our current and our future network, thereby offering the flexibility our customers demand. Once phased in, they will replace existing capacity in our fleet,” says Rabab Boulos, Chief Infrastructure Officer at Maersk.
Yangzijiang reports the vessels will be domestically designed and built as the group’s entry into methanol-fueled vessels. Maersk reports the engines will be dual-fuel capable of operating on green methanol and will be delivered in 2026 and 2027. As with the pending order for the 24 methanol containerships being built in South Korea, Maersk reports these vessels will also replace existing capacity in the Maersk fleet as part of the planned energy transition.
“With this order, we take another step in the green transformation of our fleet and towards our target of becoming net-zero in 2040,” said Boulos. He highlights that these replacement vessels will have the ability to reduce the company’s greenhouse gas emissions by 450,000 tons of CO2 per year when operating on green methanol.
Maersk will launch the methanol-fueled containership era later this summer with the delivery of its first vessel from South Korea. The 2,100 TEU feeder vessel is scheduled to make the more than 11,000 nautical mile delivery voyage to Copenhagen fueled entirely on green methanol. It will then enter service in the Baltic both as a demonstration ship and a learning experience for Maersk in the operation of methanol-fueled vessels.
The Danish shipping company also has the first of its twelve 16,000 TEU ships containerships under construction expecting them to enter service starting in 2024. They followed that with an additional order for six 17,000 TEU dual-fuel ships. Maersk highlights it now has 25 containerships on order capable of operating on the green methanol out of a fleet that Alphaliner reports consist of 338 owned ships in service and a total of over 680 vessels. The company also announced a trial to convert the first in-service vessel to Methanol in a project with MAN. The contract calls for retrofits of the main engines for a total of 11 vessels.
Maersk continues to follow a different strategy than many of its piers. It is ordering smaller capacity vessels and so far exclusively with methanol. CMA CGM and MSC as well as others are looking to test the waters with methanol while investing in LNG-fueled vessels. It had been rumored that CMA CGM was pointed to place a large methanol-fueled vessel order but Yangzijiang Shipbuilding is reporting it just received an order for 10 LNG fueled 24,000 TEU vessels which are being linked to CMA CGM instead.
The methanol orderbook has grown rapidly in the past two years. DNV sets it at over 100 ships due for delivery by 2028. That includes 81 methanol-capable containerships on order.
For Yangzijiang the order continues a strong stream of contracts this year. So far in 2023, the yard reports a total of 69 vessels ordered worth $5.6 billion. They highlight that after six months they have already exceeded their 2023 order target of $3 billion. The yard says it has its largest-ever backlog with a total of 180 vessels ordered with a value of $14.6 billion.
Cargill and Lauritzen Order Another Pioneering Methanol-Fueled Bulker
Lauritzen ordered a third methanol-fueled bulker to operate for Cargill (Lauritzen)
Cargill, the leading agribusiness, is accelerating its efforts to improve its shipping operations with an agreement to charter a third methanol-fueled Kamsarmax bulk carrier in a partnership with Danish shipping giant J. Lauritzen. The construction order adds to two vessels ordered two months ago and is in addition to Cargill’s efforts at exploring wind-assisted propulsion for its fleet.
J. Lauritzen reports through its Lauritzen NexGen Shipping division it has placed a third construction order with Japan’s Tsuneishi Group Shipbuilding. They did not announce a delivery date but said the vessel will operate for at least seven years for Cargill.
The vessel will be an 81,200 dwt Kamsarmax bulk carrier. The vessel will be powered by dual-fuel engines capable of using green methanol as well as biodiesel. According to Lauritzen, the vessels will be capable of trading with zero carbon emissions.
While the overall orderbook for methanol-fueled or ready ships is growing rapidly, the bulker segment has lagged with the orders. DNV calculates that there are currently 101 orders for methanol vessels. They report that 81 of the vessels on order will be containerships while only three of the current orders are for bulkers able to run on methanol.
In April, Lauritzen reported it had signed a letter of intent for the construction of a minimum of two methanol dual-fuel 81,200 dwt Kamsarmax bulk carriers to be built by Tsuneishi Shipbuilding. The builder reported that both ships are scheduled to be delivered in the latter half of 2026.
Tsuneishi highlights that the newly developed Kamsarmax design will maintain the high versatility of the class while leading in the new technologies. By loading an independent large-capacity methanol fuel tank, the builder said it has ensured that the methanol-fueled bulk carrier has ample cruising distance to satisfy customer needs. They reported that the hull design is improved versus the conventional Kamsarmax design, for which they have already built over 350 ships. The methanol fuel tank is placed on the stern to maintain the large cargo hold capacity typical of the class while also ensuring the safety and ease of cargo handling and safe and efficient maintenance by the crew.
The shipyard at the end of March 2023 reported it had reached a basic agreement on an order for the world’s first methanol-fueled bulk carrier. That vessel will be owned by Mitsui & Co. and also operate for Cargill. They expect it to enter service in 2025.
In addition to the first methanol-fueled bulkers, Cargill has placed orders for bulkers outfitted for wind-assisted propulsion due to enter service this year. The company also increased its use of biofuels reporting to S&P that it had purchased more than 30,000 metric tons over the past two years while predicting it would reach 50,000 metric tons this year. Between 2017 and the end of 2022, Cargill reports it has cut nearly 1.5 million tonnes of gross carbon emissions from its fleet.
