Stena Bulk joins GCMD, and OGCI for shipboard carbon capture

The Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD), the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) and Stena Bulk today initiated the first stage of a two-year, three-phase project to demonstrate shipboard carbon capture at scale.

Together with Alfa Laval, the American Bureau of Shipping, Deltamarin and TNO, the consortium will investigate onboard capture and storage, as well as offloading of captured carbon dioxide (CO2) to address the challenges and opportunities of deploying carbon capture technology on ships.

Project REMARCCABLE (Realising Maritime Carbon Capture to demonstrate the Ability to Lower Emissions) is the world’s first project aimed to demonstrate end-to-end shipboard carbon capture at scale.

While carbon capture technologies have been successfully used by OGCI’s member companies to reduce CO2 emissions from power plants and industrial operations, their use in the shipping industry is still in development.

In the largest project of its kind, targeting at least 30% absolute CO2 capture, or approximately 1000 kg/hr of capture, the seven-member consortium will build and test a marine carbon capture system onboard a Stena Bulk medium range (MR) tanker to assess the operational challenges of running such a system on a ship at sea.

Project REMARCCABLE will use non-proprietary equipment and processes, so results can be shared broadly and publicly to maximise learning and encourage further technology development. The project also aims to establish a pathway to reduce the cost of CO2 capture to 150 €/tCO2 or lower to allow the technology to be commercially deployed in future.

The initial demonstration will involve over 500 hours of capture of the exhaust from burning high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) or very-low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) and will include offloading(s) of captured and liquefied CO2 (LCO2) at ports along the route of a 10-day deep-sea voyage. Following a successful test phase, Stena Bulk will retain the carbon capture system onboard and extend its use beyond this pilot.