Gastech 2023*, the world’s largest energy exhibition and conference, was held in Singapore from September 5 to 8. NYK participated in the sessions and panel discussions on next-generation energy on September 6 and 7, showing its commitment to taking the lead in decarbonizing marine transportation through zero-emission fuels, particularly ammonia fuel.

Tsutomu Yokoyama, an NYK executive officer, spoke on the theme of “NYK’s initiatives to realize the usage of ammonia as a marine fuel and to establish an ammonia supply chain” at the session on the 6th. Given the trend of decarbonization in the international shipping industry and NYK’s strategy for decarbonization of marine transportation in its medium-term management plan, he explained our attempts to use ammonia, which has a low environmental impact, as a marine fuel and our business participation in the ammonia supply chain from upstream to downstream in addition to marine transportation.

Hironobu Watanabe, chief executive of NYK’s Energy Division, participated in the panel discussion on “Decarbonizing shipping through natural gas, e-fuels, hydrogen, and ammonia” on the 7th. He cited LNG and methanol fuels as bridge solutions until zero-emission fuels are widely used. He also mentioned the possibility of ammonia becoming more popular as a marine fuel based on the overall issues, such as demand and supply.

The international shipping industry, which accounts for around 3% of global CO₂ equivalent emissions, is required to urgently address the rapid increase in CO₂ emissions due to the growth in demand for shipping worldwide.

Toward the decarbonization of marine transportation, NYK is developing the world’s first ammonia-fueled vessel with a domestic engine (i.e., ammonia-fueled tugboat and ammonia-fueled ammonia carrier)**. NYK will continue its efforts to achieve its long-term goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net zero by 2050.

* Gastech 2023
One of the world’s largest exhibitions featuring more than 300 ministers and global business leaders discussing natural gas, hydrogen, low-carbon solutions, climate change forecasting technologies, etc., with 750 exhibitors from over 100 countries and over 40,000 attendees.

** Green Innovation Fund projects
The fund will provide continuous support for up to 10 years, from R&D and demonstration to social implementation for companies and others that address green issues as management issues based on ambitious and concrete goals shared by the public and private sectors. Support is provided mainly in the 14 priority fields for which action plans have been formulated in the Green Growth Strategy.

On March 10, 2023, the NYK Group released its medium-term management plan, “Sail Green, Drive Transformations 2026 —A Passion for Planetary Wellbeing. ” The NYK Group is promoting growth strategies with ESG at the core, based on the Group’s mission statement of “Bringing value to life” and a new corporate vision for 2030, which reads, “we go beyond the scope of a comprehensive global logistics enterprise to co-create value required for the future by advancing our core business and growing new ones.”