MOL to Step Up Hydrogen and Ammonia Business

Japanese shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) said on Wednesday it will accelerate efforts to build a global supply chain of cleaner marine energy using fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia as the world heads toward carbon neutrality by 2050.

"Decarbonizing ship fuel is one of our main goals," Kenta Matsuzaka, senior managing executive officer at MOL, told a news conference.

"We also want to contribute to global decarbonization by making use of our experience and expertise in building and owning liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuel supply vessels to create supply chains of hydrogen and ammonia," he said.

MOL said last week it, along with Linde Gas Singapore and three other partners, would explore the development of a liquefied hydrogen supply infrastructure to power Keppel Data Centers Holdings' data centers in Singapore.

This week, MOL announced its entry into a joint development study on the ammonia fuel supply chain in Singapore with Itochu Corp and four other partners, and a plan to re-enter the ammonia transport business, which it quit in 2016.

The moves are aimed at helping MOL achieve its 2050 target of net-zero emissions.

"The recent projects mostly focus on Singapore, but we'd like to use these experiences to contribute to Japan's decarbonization as the country needs to import hydrogen and ammonia, given limited availability of renewable energy sources," Matsuzaka said.

Japan unveiled a target in December to boost the country's demand for hydrogen to 3 million tonnes a year by 2030, from about 2 million tonnes currently. It also set a goal in February to grow the nation's ammonia fuel demand to 3 million tonnes a year by 2030 from zero now.

MOL has said it aims to develop a commercial and sustainable deep-sea net zero emission vessel by deploying vessels powered by the next-generation fuels by around 2030.

(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)