Ammonia bunkering and storage for the maritime industry during a global ammonia transition

Master thesis (2023)

Authors

H.V. Schotman Mechanical Engineering

Contributors

M.B. Duinkerken Transport Engineering and Logistics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (mentor)
D.L. Schott Transport Engineering and Logistics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (graduation committee member)
H. Naghash Ship Design, Production and Operations - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (graduation committee member)
Faculty
Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Copyright: © 2023 Hans-Pieter Schotman
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Published Date

25-05-2023

Language

English

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Faculty

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

The worlds awareness of our emissions and the effect it has on our surroundings is increasing. This influences efforts to put new agreements into place to reduce emissions and the effects on global warming. Along with the Paris agreements, the International Maritime Organisation also came with measures to achieve these needed reductions of emissions for the maritime industry. The set goal for 2050 is a reduction of 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve this new fuels need to be used and research need to be done on these fuels.

In this thesis the workings of a liquid bulk terminal are analysed, with the use of ammonia as fuel for ships in the maritime industry. The current liquid bulk terminals need to change with the future increase in demand and use of ammonia. This thesis focusses on how this can take place. The transport and bunkering methods of ammonia need to be researched and used to formulate a model to investigate the various options.

It is opted to develop a Discrete Event Simulation model of a liquid bulk terminal. The bunkering operations and supply of ammonia within a terminal are modelled. Various bunkering and supply methods are modelled for different sizes of terminal and at various levels of supply and demand.

The model is implemented using python and a Discrete Event Simulation package Salabim. With the models simulations it is investigated how bunker and supply methods at the terminal perform at different levels of scale. This is to gain insights for the future transition to the less polluting bunker fuel ammonia. The model is verified and validated with the use of data from literature on similar terminals using LNG.

The simulation results show that using pipeline bunkering and supply options are the most suitable. This option gives the shortest time that a ship has to spend on average at the terminal. The use of pipeline bunkering is therefore more efficient and this increases with the increasing scale of size, supply and demand of ammonia at a liquid bulk terminal.

The costs of all the facilities needed for the different sizes of terminal and the various scenarios of methods are analysed. The costs show that for smaller scales, bunker vessels and train supply, are more cost efficient. For large scale supply, demand and terminal size, using pipeline supply and bunkering is the most cost efficient.

Recommendations for future research includes the use of hybrid terminals using multiple bunkering methods at the same time. Investigating the safety risks for each method of bunkering and supply. And to use the proposed model for a case study at a location to investigate the suitability of the bunkering and supply methods for such locations.