nyk © Wan Rosli Wan Othmank_21510074

Undeterred by reaction elsewhere, Japan’s shipping lines appear to be adopting a strong stance on reducing CO2 emissions, with news this week that NYK Group will seek to neutralise emissions with ‘carbon removal’ projects, and MOL is linking 20% of executive pay to climate-related performance.

With tight schedules and short-time-to-market a priority, the decarbonisation of the car-carrier sector is challenging, which has prompted operators to look to advanced fuels to achieve their decarbonisation aims.

Korea’s HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and Norway’s Wallenius Wilhelmsen are looking into using ammonia on their vessels, while Norway’s UECC is examining ‘mass balancing’, with biofuel made from cashew shells.

However, NYK this week announced it would chart a different course. As it takes delivery of a series of LNG-fuelled car-carriers ordered in 2021, the line said it would be relying on onshore CO2 mitigation strategies “for residual emissions that cannot be avoided through efforts to reduce emissions”.

The statement was non-specific about which carbon mitigation strategy would be chosen, but in December came a taste of what the line has in store. The company signed an agreement with Eneos to cooperate in a DACCS project in Texas, which would remove CO2 from ambient air.

While DACCS suffers from a disconcertingly high energy cost, of as much as 2.5MWh per tonne of collected CO2, it benefits from a tiny fraction of the land use of afforestation – tree planting – requiring 0.2 sq km per captured tonne versus the 862 sq km trees would require.

However, afforestation is not off the table for NYK Group, it having been suggested by the company in 2023 as a possible avenue for reducing atmospheric CO2. Nor is ocean alkalinisation, a more exotic geo-engineering idea involving dropping carbonate and silicate rock in the ocean. “A will finds a way,” NYK said in its announcement.

MOL’s degree of progress on sustainability-related initiatives “is reflected in part of the evaluation for determining the long-term contribution variable compensation portion (20% of the total) or remuneration for each executive director” – including president & CEO Takeshi Hashimoto – said MOL in its Sustainability Factbook 2024.

And today MOL announced it was restructuring, including measures to spin off its car-carrier division into a distinct entity.

The Factbook shows that in 2023 MOL reduced its greenhouse gas emissions over 2019 levels by around 1.8m tonnes, though the reduction has not been a linear year-on-year decrease. Like other lines,its suspension of Red Sea transits last year is liable to have caused an uptick in cargo-miles and a concomitant increase in CO2 emissions.

And having taken an early lead on the ship design side with its bow windshield – now seeing adoption on vessels by other top carriers –container consortium ONE is proving no exception. It appears to be positioning itself as an early adopter of ammonia, last year garnering class approval in principle for a 3,500 teu ammonia-powered boxship.

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