While Anthony Veder has adopted a ‘horses for courses’ approach to alternative fuels, any newbuilds ordered in the next two years will be dual-fuel LNG, says the company’s Head of Business Development, Gerben Dijkstra.
Bunkerspot’s Rhys Berry, who attended the LNG Bunkering & Future Fuel Global Summit in Amsterdam yesterday (24 May), reports Dijkstra as saying that as a gas shipping company, new fuels offer both a challenge and opportunity. As an example of the latter, Dijkstra highlighted the small-scale LNG business that Anthony Veder entered into around 15 years ago and suggested that this could be replicated with other fuels.
‘We already transport ammonia so why not look into ammonia bunkering? It’s a sensible extension of ongoing efforts,’ Dijkstra said.
In terms of capital expenditure, Dijkstra noted that the lifespan of a newbuild vessel in the gas tanker market was 25 years and that the company would soon have to make renewal decisions for some of its ships.
‘We don’t exclude any of these alternative fuels even though we have been focusing mainly on LNG as a marine fuel for the last years,’ he said. ‘We have developed a couple of projects also in the ammonia space, in the liquid hydrogen space. We are exploring these options, both from a ship owning perspective facing fuel decisions as well as trying to make business and move into those segments.’
Dijkstra warned that shipowners ordering newbuildings today would have to ‘live with the consequences of their decisions’ for the next 25 years.
‘What we see, at least for the next couple of years, …[is] of all the fuels you can choose, LNG is still the most mature technology.’
Dijkstra said that opting for methanol, ammonia ‘let alone hydrogen’ would have a negative impact for the next couple of years.
‘All these fuels are from fossil origin at the moment and they will increase your carbon footprint for the foreseeable future until you get to a point where you start getting access to e-fuels, to synthetic fuels,’ Dijkstra said. ‘And then if you look at synthetic fuels, our analysis is there is no clear winner among the different e-fuels.’
As such, any newbuild vessel ordered in the ‘next couple of years’ will be dual-fuel LNG,’ said Dijkstra.
‘We think with a 25-year time horizon and technology where it is right now, that’s the only responsible choice we can make,’ said Dijkstra, who did not rule out incorporating different fuels in later projects.
‘We are willing to learn that [and] we are learning that. We are working with the equipment makers, we are working with clients, we are working with multiple partners to make sure that we understand what the pros and cons of the different alternatives are,’ he said. ‘And that learning as you go and teaming up is something we feel is key to our approach – that’s the only way to do it.’
