On January 30, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, the holding company of the shipbuilding business of South Korea's HD Hyundai Group, announced that it had signed a contract with Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Lines to build two 12,000-cubic-meter liquefied carbon dioxide (LCO2) carriers.
These two LCO2 carriers will be built at Hyundai Heavy Industries' Ulsan shipyard and are scheduled to be delivered to the shipowner by the end of 2029. The price of the new vessels was not disclosed. This is one of the four 12,000-cubic-meter LCO2 carriers that the Norwegian company Northern Lights previously announced it would order for its second phase. Besides the two vessels from Hyundai Heavy Industries, a consortium of Japan's Kawasaki Kisen and Malaysia's MISC will build one plus one 12,000-cubic-meter LCO2 carriers at Dalian Shipbuilding Industry.
HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering stated that the LCO2 carriers are 150 meters in length, 28 meters in width, and 15 meters in depth, making them the world's largest medium-pressure LCO2 carriers. To safely transport liquefied carbon dioxide, the vessels feature a medium-pressure C-type independent cargo tank (C-Type) design made of low-temperature and high-strength materials. They also have a cargo handling system capable of safely transporting LPG, enabling multi-functional cargo transportation.
The LCO2 carriers are equipped with environmentally friendly LNG dual-fuel engines to reduce emissions during navigation. They also adopt ice-class design technology for safe navigation in ice areas, allowing stable operation in polar environments such as the Arctic. Additionally, the vessels are fitted with bow and stern thrusters to enhance maneuverability during port entry and exit and anchoring.
Once these LCO2 carriers are completed and delivered, they will be used in the carbon capture and storage (CCS) service project operated by Northern Lights, a joint venture of Equinor, Shell, and Total Energies. They will transport carbon dioxide captured from European industries to the receiving terminal on the west coast of Norway and ultimately inject it into the seabed rock layers at a depth of 2,600 meters in the North Sea for permanent storage.
As the world's first cross-border commercial carbon capture and storage project, the first phase of the project has a storage capacity of 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year and has been fully booked by customers in Norway and continental Europe. The final investment decision for the second phase will be announced in March 2025, which will increase the project's capacity to over 5 million tons per year from 2028.
In October last year, the Norwegian Ministry of Energy confirmed that the carbon dioxide facilities of Northern Lights had been completed and put into operation. This marks that part of the Longship project of Northern Lights has transitioned from the construction stage to the operation stage.
It is reported that the project has successfully received carbon capture gas from European industrial sources and achieved million-ton-scale geological storage in the North Sea's depleted oil and gas fields. It is understood that the four 7,500-cubic-meter LCO2 carriers of Northern Lights' first phase were all built by Dalian Shipbuilding Industry. The first three vessels, Northern Pioneer, Northern Pathfinder, and Northern Phoenix, have been delivered and are in operation, managed by Kawasaki Kisen. The fourth vessel of the same type is scheduled to be delivered and put into operation in May this year and is owned by Germany's Bernhard Schulte.
According to the Global CCS Institute (GCCSI), with the acceleration of global decarbonization policies, global carbon capture is expected to approach 7.6 billion tons by 2050. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the amount of carbon dioxide collected globally will increase from the current 44 million tons to 1.2 billion tons in 2030 and 6.2 billion tons in 2050. By 2070, 15% of global carbon dioxide reduction will be achieved through carbon capture, utilization and storage. If related businesses are fully developed in the future, the demand for carbon dioxide transportation will increase significantly. Therefore, it is expected that the demand for LCO2 carriers will also increase sharply. DNV predicts that the global LCO2 carrier fleet will expand to 41 vessels by 2030, increase to 124 by 2040, and surge to 270 by 2050.
A representative of HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering said, "In the promising LCO2 carrier market, the company has mastered low-pressure (LP) and medium-pressure (MP) storage technologies and can actively respond to customer demands and continuously secure orders. In the future, the company will build high-quality ships based on the highest technical level and the most extensive construction experience in the shipbuilding industry, contributing to the global decarbonization trend."
Previously, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering received orders for a total of four 22,000-cubic-meter LCO2 carriers from Capital Clean Energy Carriers Corp. (CCEC), owned by Greek shipping magnate Evangelos Marinakis, from July 2023 to January 2024. These vessels, with a length of 159.9 meters, a width of 27.4 meters, and a depth of 17.8 meters, are currently the largest capacity LCO2 carriers ordered globally. They are equipped with C-type cargo tanks made of new steel materials and can transport various liquefied gas cargoes such as LPG, ammonia, and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) in addition to LCO2.
On January 6, 2023, the first of these 22,000-cubic-meter LCO2 carriers, named ACTIVE was successfully delivered by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries. Due to its excellent performance, ACTIVE was awarded the "Ship of the Year" in the future low-carbon transportation solutions category at the Greek Shipping Awards hosted by Lloyd's List in December 2022.
To safely transport carbon dioxide collected during blue hydrogen production, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering will further accelerate the development of large-capacity LCO2 carriers. So far, the company's development of the world's first 40,000-cubic-meter LCO2 carrier has received a principle of approval (AiP) certificate from the Korean Register of Shipping (KR) and design approval from Lloyd's Register (LR); the 74,000-cubic-meter LCO2 carrier jointly developed by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hyundai Glovis, and G-Marine Service has received a joint principle of approval (AIP) certificate from the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and the Marshall Islands Maritime Registry (MIR); and the 30,000-cubic-meter LCO2 carrier has received a joint principle of approval (AIP) certificate from Lloyd's Register (LR) and the Liberian Maritime Administration (LiMA), leading the development of core technologies for the maritime transportation of carbon dioxide. Joo Won-ho, the representative of the Shipbuilding and Medium-sized Vessels Division of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, said, "The company is continuously strengthening its technological competitiveness in the construction of LCO2 carriers and ammonia-fueled ships. We will secure a competitive edge in the environmentally friendly ship market through technological innovation and lead the marine mobility field."