The Japan-flagged Suiso Frontier is set to depart from Kobe for Australia by the end of December for the world’s first marine transport of liquefied hydrogen, a source directly involved with the project told S&P Global Platts Dec. 15, marking a milestone in the commercialization of this new source of energy, says an article published in Platts.
World’s first liquefied hydrogen carrier
The Suiso Frontier, loaded with some 75 mt of hydrogen in Japan, is set to leave Kobe in western Japan by the end of the year and arrive in Hastings in southeastern Australia in mid- to late January to verify the marine transport technology for liquefied hydrogen, the source said.
The 8,000 gross tonnes Suiso Frontier, the world’s first liquefied hydrogen carrier with a cargo loading capacity of 1,250 cu m, is using one of the two storage tanks for carrying some 75 mt of liquefied hydrogen for this transport, the source said.
The liquefied hydrogen tanker is scheduled to return to Kobe in mid- to late February after loading some 2 mt of hydrogen at Hastings, which is produced from brown coal, to fill up the boil-off volume, the source said.
The marine liquefied hydrogen transport over more than 9,000 km will come as part of a pilot project run by the CO2-free Hydrogen Energy Supply-chain Technology Research Association, or HySTRA with aid from the state-owned New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization.
First marine hydrogen transportation
The first transport liquefied hydrogen will take place after having delayed from fiscal year 2020-21 (April-March) due mainly to delays in getting final approvals from foreign manufacturers on facilities installed on the Suiso Frontier because of Japans’s COVID-19-related entry restrictions for foreign visitors.
The Suiso Frontier recently received a classification from Nippon Kaiji Kyokai, or ClassNK.
The project plans to demonstrate brown coal gasification and hydrogen refining in the Latrobe Valley in southeastern Australia, hydrogen liquefaction and storage of liquefied hydrogen at the port of Hastings, marine transportation of liquefied hydrogen from Australia to Japan, and the unloading of liquefied hydrogen at Kobe.
HySTRA members are Electric Power Development or J-POWER, Shell Japan, Iwatani, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Marubeni, ENEOS and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha.
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Source: Platts
