Japan’s shipping giant NYK and its partners Nihon Shipyard and IHI have secured an approval in principle from ClassNK for their ammonia floating storage and regasification barge (A-FSRB).
NYK said in a statement that this is the world’s first AiP for an A-FSRB.
In August last year, NYK signed a deal with the three firms for the commercialization of the barge.
An A-FSRB is an offshore floating facility that can receive and store ammonia. It gets the fuel in liquid form, regasifies it and sends it to a pipeline onshore, according to NYK.
The barge offers the advantages of shorter construction time and lower costs compared to onshore storage tanks and regasification plants.
In fact, NYK said that the partners expect the A-FSRB to speed up the adoption of fuel ammonia and contribute to its wider use as a “lower-environmental-impact next-generation fuel”.
Working with power firms
There are no international regulations for ammonia floating storage and regasification facilities.
NYK says that that the unique requirements of ammonia would have to be reflected in the design.
The firms conducted a risk identification of various contingencies and worked to identify technical issues from the initial study stage.
“A risk identification was conducted using the gap analysis method, which identifies differences between conventional ships and offshore floating facilities (heavy oil, LNG, etc.) and evaluates the impact of such differences,” NYK said.
As a result, the partners extracted items for future technical studies of possible accidental incidents and differences between conventional ships and offshore floating facilities and obtained the AiP from ClassNK.
According to NYK, the partners would continue to study the arrangement and introduction of A-FSRBs with electric power companies.
The partners expect power firms to be the main users of A-FSRBs.
Additionally, the parties would work on economic evaluation in parallel, NYK said.
