Canada’s green taxonomy unlikely to include new natural gas projects

Bloomberg News | October 9, 2024 | 

Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, along with Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Canada has provided more clarity on what it considers to be “green” investments — with new natural gas projects unlikely to make the cut.


Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced guiding principles for a Canadian taxonomy on Wednesday that would define and categorize investments meant to advance the goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

The guideline will include both low-emitting “green” activities and “transition” activities that enable decarbonization. Banks, insurers, pension plans and asset managers have asked for those definitions, the Finance Department said in a background document.

“The government does not anticipate new natural gas production to be eligible” for either category, the document stated. But activities associated with a “limited buildout” of existing gas projects — or that significantly reduce emissions at them — may qualify. Nuclear activities weren’t mentioned.

Many financial institutions have targets for green financing and green investments. Without a taxonomy, each institution is left to define for itself what fits, raising the risk of greenwashing.

The exercise is complicated by the fact that there’s no universal set of rules: as of June, some 21 green taxonomies have been published worldwide, with another 21 under development or announced by regulators, according to BloombergNEF.

“Canada has some catching up to do in the global race for climate capital,” Ryan Riordan, director of research with the Institute for Sustainable Finance at Queen’s University, said in an email.

Examples of green activities provided in the background document include hydrogen, solar and wind energy generation, as well as electrical transmission lines.

Installing a lower-emitting electric furnace to produce steel, meanwhile, was given as an example of a transition activity. Mining of so-called critical minerals, such as copper and lithium, might also be considered a transition activity.

The Canadian taxonomy will be developed and governed by a third-party organization, which will have the final say on eligible activities.

The government also announced it will require large, federally incorporated private companies to disclose climate-related financial risks — with details to come later.

Heather Exner-Pirot, special adviser to the Business Council of Canada, said the business community doesn’t need more regulation, especially as it reels from the anti-greenwashing provisions enacted via Bill C-59 in June.

“Adding more mandatory net zero regulations, and not saying what they are, is not compatible with a world of investor certainty,” she said in an interview.

The government plans to release more information on how it will harmonize its requirements with those of provincial securities regulators.
Incremental progress

The government launched a council of banks, insurers, pensions and asset managers in May 2021 to give advice on the development of the taxonomy. The group came up with a draft framework in 2023, and environmentalists have criticized the government for taking so long to finalize one.

The council “gave us some good advice; we’re building on it now,” Freeland said at the Principles for Responsible Investment conference in Toronto on Wednesday. “These are made-in-Canada guidelines for sustainable investing.”

The developments were welcomed by the PRI, which called the announcements “significant steps forward for investors.”

Barbara Zvan, chairwoman of the taxonomy council and president and CEO of University Pension Plan Ontario, also welcomed the new rules, which “will help companies and investors develop credible transition plans for their operations and portfolios, respectively.”

Julie Segal, senior program manager of climate finance with Environmental Defence Canada, said the taxonomy’s definitions must be rigorous and science-based to be effective.

A consortium of environmental groups that includes Environmental Defence, Ecojustice and Stand.earth criticized the government’s suggestion that existing natural gas projects may have a place in the framework.

“The government’s acknowledgment that new oil or gas projects are inconsistent with a safe climate is a positive step, but investments in any type of gas projects still risk locking Canada into an anachronistic economy,” Segal said in an email.

Exner-Pirot, however, said she’s “very annoyed” that new natural gas could be excluded from the taxonomy, in part because doing so would put Canada’s definitions among the strictest worldwide.

The European Union, Russia, Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China classify natural gas for electricity, heating and cooling as green, according to BloombergNEF.

(By Melissa Shin)

CanAlaska Uranium shores up Pike zone with more high-grade hits in Athabasca

Colin McClelland - The Northern Miner | October 10, 2024 | 

Drilling at the West McArthur project is focused on expanding the footprint of the ‘42 zone’ mineralization. Credit: CanAlaska Uranium

CanAlaska Uranium (TSXV: CVV) posted new “ultra high-grade” drill results from its Athabasca basin joint venture with Cameco (TSX: CCO; NYSE: CCJ) that strengthen its Pike discovery, made in 2022. Company shares gained 7.6%.


Highlights at the Pike zone of the West McArthur project in northern Saskatchewan show drill hole WMA082-11 on target L85E cut 25.8 metres grading 6.47% uranium oxide (U3O8) including 4 metres at 22.78% U3O8, CanAlaska said on Thursday.

Drill hole WMA082-8 returned 16.2 metres grading 7.63% U3O8, including 6.1 metres at 17.31% U3O8. On target L70E, drill hole WMA082-7 cut 11.4 metres at 6.22% U3O8, including 5.6 metres grading 11.4% U3O8.

The results from the drilling this summer follow 9.3% U3O8 over 16.2 metres from 797 metres depth in hole WMA082-12 reported last month. And there was the discovery in July showing 9.3 metres grading 11.62% radiometric equivalent U3O8 in hole WMA082-8. Cormark Securities has compared CanAlaska’s results to potential for “pearls on a string.”

The company found uranium mineralization in 11 of 12 unconformity tests at Pike this summer. The results indicate a strike length of about 200 metres including a high-grade area of 100 metres that remain open in all directions, it said. CanAlaska, which holds 83% of the project, is paying for this year’s exploration to increase its stake.

“Pike zone is starting to position itself into a possible world-class uranium discovery located just 12 km from the giant McArthur River uranium mine,” CanAlaska CEO Cory Belyk in a release. “Pike zone is growing rapidly in its footprint.”
More drilling

CanAlaska plans more exploration to start in January as companies scramble to take advantage of nuclear power’s renewed momentum to help replace fossil fuels and a uranium spot price that hit a 17-year record high early this year.

The West is keen to develop its own resources and shun production from pariah Russia. The Athabasca basin is one of the planet’s richest uranium hotspots, where companies such as Cameco, French state-owned giant Orano, and Denison Mines (TSX: DML; NYSE: DNN) are working to extract the energy metal.

Shares in CanAlaska Uranium traded for C$0.71 apiece Thursday morning in Toronto, valuing the company at C$115.8 million. They’ve traded in a 52-week range of C$0.34 to C$0.79.

Cormark Securities mining analyst Nicolas Dion said in a Sept. 27 note that the summer drilling program bodes well for the project. The company reported that day two holes with less mineralization: 13.2 metres at 3.88% U3O8 in hole MA094-2 and 9.9 metres at 3.41% U3O8 in hole WMA094-1.

“While not as thick as the intercepts in the original sections/discovery area, these results confirm the potential for additional pods of high-grade mineralization along strike at the Pike zone,” Dion said. “This opens up the blue-sky potential as we think about the common ‘pearls on a string’ analogy for other high-grade unconformity-hosted deposits in the basin.”

Teck CEO says Canada must spend more to erode China’s critical minerals dominance

Bloomberg News | October 10, 2024 | 

Teck CEO Jonathan Price. (Credit: BHP)

Teck Resources Ltd.’s chief executive officer warned the Canadian government that it isn’t doing enough to foster development in the critical minerals sector.


Speaking Thursday at an event in Ottawa, Jonathan Price said that while both the US and Canada have focused on developing the electric-vehicle and battery manufacturing sectors on the continent, support for mines and mineral processing continues to lag.

That stands in contrast with countries like Saudi Arabia and China, whose governments are spending billions to entrench their positions in global supply chains, he said.

Price flagged the massive public subsidies that Canada’s federal government has pledged to international companies including Volkswagen AG, Northvolt AB and Stellantis NV, and urged further investments to support resource autonomy in the country.

“Support for car and battery plants, absent support for the mines needed to support them, is like starting a farm-to-table restaurant — without bothering to plant the farm.”


Price also referred to Canada’s “cumbersome regulatory processes,” including lengthy permitting times, saying they make the sector less competitive and are a deterrent to investment. North American governments need “ambitious, targeted government incentives and investment” to grow critical minerals capacity, he said.

The comments come as North American governments push to re-shore productive capacity and reassert control over resource supply chains amid mounting criticisms of China flooding markets with cheaper products. Both the US and Canada have started to levy tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, as well as steel and aluminum products.

In a discussion after the speech, US Ambassador to Canada David Cohen said that both countries’ governments need to prioritize and encourage investment into the mining sector. While figuring out how to sustainably open the sector will “ultimately will be solved by the private sector,” Cohen noted North American policy should continue to offer “grants, incentives and credits to try and offset the impact and influence of China’s dominance.”

Cohen pointed to the Defense Production Act Investments program in the US, which has already provided funding to Canadian mining companies like Fortune Minerals Limited and Lomiko.

In his speech, Price noted that Canada’s government has has committed C$4 billion ($2.9 billion) in spending on critical minerals over eight years, while China has spent C$20 billion in 2023 alone, evidence that China will be aggressive in trying to consolidate its dominance in critical minerals.

“It’s about economic security, it’s about energy security, and it is about national security,” Price said.

At a news conference in Toronto, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said her government has put forward the first Canadian critical minerals strategy and it also has a suite of investment tax credits for green projects worth more than C$90 billion.

She said Canada is working closely with the US to coordinate supply chains, resulting in the American investments in Canadian miners. But western allies are seeing “very targeted, very intentional” Chinese action to “wipe out” nascent miners and processors, she said.

“We at the G-7, working with partners, working with all political allies in this space, really need to find collective ways to support our miners, our processors,” she said.

“I think we’ve all recognized that we need more supply chain security and I think it will take collective action to make that happen.”

(By Erik Hertzberg)

SYNGAS

China’s top miner to spend $24 billion on coal-to-oil project

Bloomberg News | October 10, 2024 | 

Credit: cbpix/Adobe Stock

China’s biggest coal miner announced the construction this week of another massive project to supply feedstock for petrochemicals makers and help clear a prospective surplus of the fossil fuel.


China Energy Investment Corp. said it will spend 170 billion yuan ($24 billion) to build an integrated plant in the northwestern region of Xinjiang that will turn coal into oil products. As is expected of all such projects, the facility will be powered by renewable energy — although its inputs and outputs will be anything but clean. The first phase is slated to come online in 2027.

The facility in Hami city is just the latest in a series of coal-to-oil developments greenlit in recent years in the mining hubs of Xinjiang, Shaanxi, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. Hami alone has indicated it will approve 300 billion yuan’s worth of such projects in its five-year plan through 2025, which could consume 152 million tons of coal by the end of the decade.

For all of its rapid deployment of clean energy, China remains by far the world’s largest coal producer and continues to push output to record levels, which hit 4.7 billion tons last year. But the fuel’s main usage in generating electricity has reached a turning point, after being surpassed for the first time by solar and wind installations. Moreover, President Xi Jinping has said consumption needs to start falling from 2026 to meet the nation’s climate goals, which has led coal miners to seek other avenues for their product.

One problem is that China’s petrochemicals industry is in a funk, the victim of its own breakneck expansion just as consumption has faltered due to a weak economy. Coal-to-oil profits slumped 53% last year, according to the China Petroleum and Chemical Industrial Federation.

Another is that healthy margins rely on a wide spread between the price of coal, which China has been successful in suppressing, and the price of oil, which has suffered as Chinese imports have slowed. Beijing’s wider efforts to decarbonize the economy continue to weigh heavily on oil processing generally, and Chinese consumption of products like diesel and gasoline may already have peaked.

The Hami facility, which will be capable of yielding 4 million tons of oil products a year for processing into materials like polyester, is more likely to prosper because CEIC’s scale allows it to mine coal particularly cheaply. It’s liquefaction technology has also been touted as state of the art.

But the timing nevertheless represents a risk. China’s coal-to-oil capacity rose 24% to 11 million tons in 2023 compared to 2019. That means the new plant will account for a significant chunk of Chinese output at a time when its customers aren’t in great shape and pressure is mounting on industry to reduce rather than add to national carbon emissions.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for SYNGAS 

Mining stocks may drop 20% if US tariffs imposed – JPMorgan

Staff Writer | October 10, 2024 | 

Mining stocks could face a valuation drop of up to 20% if US tariffs are imposed after next November’s presidential election, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts.


“Metals markets aren’t pricing in significant risk premiums for trade-related outcomes, like higher tariffs, despite this being a concern raised by clients,” analysts Dominic O’Kane and his team wrote in a note.

JPMorgan’s analysis shows potential downside of 10% to 20% in the fair value of major mining stocks in a scenario where base metal and iron ore prices decline by more than 10%.

The bank cited tariffs as a key factor behind the sector’s more than 10% drop in 2017-2018 during the Trump administration.

JPMorgan downgraded Anglo American Plc from overweight to neutral and Sweden’s Boliden AB from neutral to underweight. Shares of both companies fell, with Anglo American down 2.1% and Boliden down 2.8%.

Regardless of the election outcome, tariffs will remain central to US minerals policy.

Gregory Wischer, a non-resident fellow at the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines, stated that a future Harris administration would likely maintain the Biden administration’s tariffs on Chinese mineral imports, while a Trump administration could significantly increase tariffs, including a potential 60% levy on Chinese imports and a 10% baseline on all imports.

(With files from Bloomberg)

One dead, 12 people trapped deep underground at Colorado mine tourist attraction

Reuters | October 10, 2024 | 


One person was dead and 12 others were trapped 1,000 feet (300 meters) underground on Thursday following an elevator failure at a former Colorado gold mine that is now a tourist attraction, officials said.


Another 11 people were rescued from the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine attraction in Cripple Creek, Colorado, Teller county sheriff Jason Mikesell told reporters.


Emergency responders were attempting to repair the elevator to bring back the 11 tourists and one tour guide who were trapped starting around midday (1800 GMT), Mikesell said.

With one tour group below ground, the elevator experienced some type of mechanical failure with another group aboard while it was about halfway down the mine shaft. This resulted in one fatality while four other people suffered minor injuries, Mikesell said without providing details of how the person died.

That group was able to return to the surface on the elevator, which has since been out of commission, the sheriff said.

Responders had radio communication with the people trapped below, and they had water, blankets and chairs to keep them comfortable, Mikesell said.

But they were not told that someone died, only that there was a problem with the elevator, the sheriff said.

Engineers from the state, mine safety experts and firefighters were on hand.

In the event the elevator cannot be safely repaired, firefighters were preparing for a rescue operation, but using the elevator would be much safer, Mikesell said.

“If we have to, we can bring people up on those ropes, but it also subjects those first responders now to the threat and endangerment of doing so,” Mikesell said.

A family business has been operating tours at the mine, which is about 110 miles (180 km) south of Denver, for 50 years, with only one previous, unspecified safety incident in 1986, Mikesell said.

(By Daniel Trotta; Editing by Chris Reese and Cynthia Osterman)

 

Multiple Deaths, Injuries and Ship Damaged as Attacks Intensify on Ukraine ports

Russian missile attack damaged infrastructure in the port of Chornomorsk and killed and injured people in the areas around the port (Oleksiy Kuleba on Telegram)

Published Oct 10, 2024 1:58 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

Ukrainian officials are reporting multiple deaths and injuries in the Odesa port region as Russia intensifies its attacks on the Black Sea ports. The reports indicate that the third foreign vessel, a containership, was also damaged during the overnight attacks which appeared timed to Ukraine’s harvest and exports to increase exports.

The latest attack was centered on the region around the port of Chornomorsk with the official reports saying it was struck by a ballistic missile attack. Unconfirmed reports by the Ukrainian media are also quoting residents saying for several nights they have heard the buzz of drones. The reports state that debris from Iranian-made Shahed drones was found possibly after they were shot down by Ukraine’s air defenses.

Reports indicate there were as many as 11 missile strikes in the port area with the death toll at last report having risen to eight including two 26-year-old civilians, a man and a woman, who both died at a hospital. At least nine people, some seriously, were injured in the attacks. It also appeared to be a coordinated series of attacks across multiple regions in Ukraine. The southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia reported 29 buildings damaged resulting in injuries to at least six people.

The Panama-flagged containership Shui Spirit (21,614 dwt) docked in Chornomorsk on October 8, Tuesday and appears to be part of the feeder service to Constanta, Romania.  The vessel is listed as having been sold in May 2024 and is now managed from Portugal. Built in 2000, it has a capacity of approximately 1,600 TEU. 

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba reported the damage to the vessel in a social media posting highlighting it was the third vessel struck in four days. There were no reports of injuries to the crew. Five crewmembers were injured in Monday's attacks and one workers in the port killed. Ukraine's Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Vitalii Koval reproted that the vessel was loading 45 containers with sunflower oil that was part of a humanatarian shipment bythe UN going to Gaza.

 

Ukraine asserts Russia is purposefully intensifying its attacks on the port infrastructure (Oleksiy Kuleba on Telegram)

 

“Russia is purposefully intensifying its attacks on the port infrastructure in southern Ukraine,” wrote Kuleba on Telegram. “The purpose of these attacks is to reduce our export potential.” 

Ukraine contends Russia is targeting grain exports which will “provoke a food crisis.” The reports said the targets of the shelling were primarily ports, civilian ships, and granaries. Kuleba writes that there have been almost 60 attacks over the past three months damaging 300 pieces of port infrastructure. He says a total of 79 civilians were injured, including employees of ports, logistics companies, and ship crews.

The reports indicate that the Russian attacks on the Black Sea ports damaged $1.5 billion worth of equipment and products. 

Reports are questioning the time of these attacks pointing out that they come after the critical harvest and the export season increases. They also note that they seem timed to the visit by President Volodymyr Zelensky to Europe including stops in London, Paris, and Rome. Yesterday he met with the British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and today with French President Emmanuel Macron. He also held a meeting with the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

A spokesperson for the European Union denounced the attacks on the port infrastructure calling them a “blatant violation of international law. The EU again called for the attacks to stop immediately.

 

DNV: Emissions From Energy Have Peaked, but Paris Goals Are Still Far Off

File image courtesy DNV

Published Oct 9, 2024 10:07 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

DNV believes that 2024 will be the year of peak CO2 emissions from coal, oil and gas, the class society says in its latest annual energy transition report. 

According to DNV, emissions from energy are about to begin a long decline, and will be cut in half by midcentury. While half sounds like a success for the green transition, it is still only halfway to "net zero," and will likely propel the climate to about 2.2 degrees Celcius of warming by the century's end, DNV predicts. 

The driving force behind the emissions plateau is the dramatic drop in the cost of solar panels and lithium-ion batteries - a price drop attributable to Chinese manufacturers, which dominate the solar and battery-storage markets. The falling price of solar is driving coal out of the greenfield powerplant market, and solar installations increased by an astonishing 80 percent last year. 

Emissions from energy will peak this year and drop by half by midcentury, according to DNV (DNV)

The cost of battery storage farms is also falling fast, so it is economically feasible for renewable power installations to deliver (stored) power in all conditions, around the clock. Cheaper batteries have also made electric cars much more competitive, especially in China, where the majority of drivers now buy battery-based vehicles. China's motorists will likely peak their gasoline consumption by 2025, according to Vitol, and might even achieve that milestone by the end of this year. Global passenger vehicle sales should follow China's lead and will likely be half-electric by 2031, DNV predicts. 

"Solar PV and batteries are driving the energy transition, growing even faster than we previously forecasted," said Remi Eriksen, Group President and CEO of DNV. "There is a compelling green dividend on offer which should give policymakers the courage to not only double down on renewable technologies, but to tackle the expensive and difficult hard-to-electrify sectors with firm resolve."

Those sectors include shipping and aviation, which both require hydrogen-based fuels at scale. However, DNV has revised down its estimate for the trajectory of hydrogen-based fuels like green methanol and green ammonia, and now expects that they will make up about four percent of final energy demand by 2050. Carbon capture will likely handle about six percent of global emissions in the same timeframe, including an estimated 15 percent of all emissions from shipping (through onboard carbon capture and storage). 

To speed up adoption of costlier green solutions for tough use cases like maritime, DNV suggests a global carbon price may be needed - like the bunker levy under consideration at IMO.  

"Market forces alone cannot achieve the Paris Agreement's goal of keeping the temperature rise well below 2°C. While markets are often effective in promoting renewable electricity and EV uptake, they fall short in addressing costly and complex technological measures in other sectors," DNV's analysts concluded. 

 

HD Hyundai Claims Ammonia Engine First Using High-Pressure Injection

HD Hyundai reports it has completed a high-pressure injection technology for ammonia-fueled power (HD Hyundai)

Published Oct 10, 2024 4:21 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

HD Hyundai Heavy Industries is claiming to have achieved a critical breakthrough in the development of ammonia-fueled engines using a unique high-pressure injection method. The South Korean shipbuilder says it achieved certification during model testing and is ready to begin commercialization of the engine.

The engine Hyundai reports uses a newly developed "high-pressure direct injection method" that compresses air in the engine combustion chamber and then burns it by injecting ammonia with high pressure. According to the company, this is the first ammonia engine in the world that has successfully applied a high-pressure ammonia direct injection method.

“Until now, ammonia engines were based on a ‘low-pressure premixed combustion method’,” says Hyundai, which they explained burns a mixture of ammonia and air, which has been provided to the engine combustion chamber, through compression. They are saying that despite the benefits of great output and fuel efficiency, engine companies around the world had difficulty developing this method due to its high technological complexity.

While setting up an optimized fuel spraying time and period to maximize the burn rate, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries reports it also utilized a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system to minimize the amount of nitrogen oxide and unburned ammonia. In addition, an Integrated Scrubber developed independently by HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering has been widely applied resulting in a drastic reduction of ammonia concentrations.

"The development of this ammonia engine has great meaning as it will be an opportunity for us to lead the market while providing an expanded eco-friendly dual-fuel engine lineup," said an official of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries. "We aim to enhance our advanced technology and take the lead in the future eco-friendly ship market."

Model-based testing of the engine was completed on October 7 at Hyundai’s Engine Technology Center in Ulsan, South Korea. The testing was attended by representatives from seven classification societies including ABS, DNV, LR, BV, RINA, ClassNK, and KR. 

They report that the engine is receiving model-based class approval from the seven major classification societies. The detailed examination and compliance review were finalized with the model-based class approval, and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries reports it will soon start commercialization of the HiMSEN ammonia engine.

HD Hyundai Heavy Industries says that the ammonia engine will be suitable not only for ammonia carriers but also for marine power generation and propulsion purposes. The company also plans to market the engine to the land-based power generation market.

This comes just weeks after Japan’s NYK reported it had completed the conversion of a tug to become the first to operate on ammonia as its primary fuel. They plan to begin operations in Tokyo Bay as part of a demonstration project. Singapore has been proceeding with the testing and certification of an offshore supply vessel converted for ammonia operations by Australia’s Fortescue while in the United States, a startup company Amogy demonstrating an ammonia cracking technology that produces hydrogen for fuel cells. They completed the first demonstration on a converted tugboat as they work to scale up their technology.

Major engine manufacturers including MAN and Wartsila have also reported strong progress on the development of their versions of ammonia-fueled engines. It is widely anticipated that the technology would begin to be deployed by 2026. 
 

 

Partnership to Design Next-Generation SOV for Floating Offshore Wind Ops

Project seeks to tailor the SOV design to the challenges of floating offshore wind projects (North Star)

Published Oct 9, 2024 8:13 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

A new industry collaboration is being launched by North Star, Vard, and others to solve the challenge of delivering high-performance operations and maintenance ships tailored for floating offshore wind farms. They look to leverage the collective expertise to develop a new generation of vessels better suited to the future of offshore wind operations.

According to the partners, as offshore wind moves into deeper waters with floating wind turbines located far from shore, the sector faces significant logistical and operational challenges that must be addressed efficiently and cost-effectively. While the industry has demonstrated the ability to safely complete transfers from traditional SOVs to floating wind platforms, they believe there is room for improvement in transfers where both the vessel and platform are dynamic and in motion.

North Star has signed a memorandum of understanding with MO4, Principle Power, SMST, VARD, and Voith Group, to establish a dedicated working group of industry experts to help fast-track the design and testing of a new SOV concept. Together, the six organizations have committed to developing a detailed, high-performance ship design to meet the needs of commercial-scale projects, such as the 17GW of floating projects awarded in the ScotWind leasing round.

“Floating offshore wind presents both challenges and opportunities, and through this collaboration, we can innovate, and design a solution specifically tailored for GW-scale projects,” said Andrew Duncan, North Star’s renewables & innovations director. “Our goal is to create an innovative, best-in-class ship design that supports the rapid expansion of floating wind technology. By pushing the boundaries of what's possible, we can ensure that our future SOVs deliver the highest levels of safety, efficiency, and operational flexibility, ultimately paving the way for a more sustainable energy future.”

They believe there exists an opportunity to optimize the transfer operations by developing SOVs that will operate under a long-term contract that specifically addresses the local challenges and the requirements of floating wind project operators. The collaboration seeks to capitalize on this opportunity by delivering an SOV design that sets a new industry benchmark for safety, performance, and efficiency.

North Star which provides support services for the UK’s offshore wind and oil and gas markets will be joined by VARD, a major global designer and specialized vessel shipbuilder which is a leader in SOVs, and Principle Power, which has been developing offshore wind platforms for 15 years. They will add emerging technology by involving Digital twin and AI decision support software firm MO4 as well as Voith Group, which will contribute propulsion options, and offshore equipment design and build specialist SMST.

“The detailed ship design will be put to the test through rigorous workability assessments, ensuring that it meets the highest standards of performance, safety, and efficiency before being implemented in future floating wind projects,” said Duncan.