- NYK working in conjunction with IHI Power Systems has completed the conversion of a tugboat operating in Tokyo Bay to run on ammonia-fueled propulsion.
- The project which began four years ago marks the first successful deployment of a commercial vessel fueled by ammonia.
- The project was reviewed, and the vessel now classed by ClassNK.
NYK has announced that work on the ammonia-fuelled tugboat Sakigake has been completed and the NYK Group company Shin-Nippon Kaiyosha will now use the vessel in in Tokyo Bay over a three-month demonstration period.
ClassNK to Class Ammonia-Fueled Tugboat
Described by the shipowner as ‘the world’s first ammonia-fuelled vessel for commercial use’, the vessel has been developed by NYK in association with IHI Power Systems and ClassNK and was a Green Innovation Fund Project initiated in October 2021 under Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) to develop vessels equipped with domestically produced ammonia-fuelled engines.
According to NYK: ‘The [Sakigake’s] predecessor, the LNG-fuelled tugboat of the same name, was completed in August 2015 as the first LNG-fueled vessel in Japan. After eight years of tug service in Tokyo Bay, the vessel was docked at the NYK Group’s Keihin Dock Co. Ltd. for conversion to an ammonia-fuelled vessel. The main engine, etc., were replaced with ammonia-fuelled ones, and sea trials were conducted using ammonia as fuel. The completed vessel has taken the name Sakigake, hoping it will be a pioneer of ammonia-fueled vessels, just as it was of LNG-fuelled vessels.’
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Source: NYK
