Following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and Lloyd’s Register (LR) Maritime Decarbonisation Hub for the Silk Alliance, four additional members have joined the initiative – energy producer, Yara Clean Ammonia ASA; trade association, the Methanol Institute; academic institute, the National University of Singapore (NUS) Centre for Maritime Studies; and shipowner, MPC Container Ships ASA – to support the award-winning proposed project aimed at the decarbonisation of a regional shipping corridor centred on the container trades, according to LR's release.
The Silk Alliance is focused on a regional fleet, predominantly bunkering in Singapore that also trades across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The onboarding of Yara Clean Ammonia ASA and the Methanol Institute will accelerate efforts to better understand the fuel infrastructure considerations and bunkering capacity development required for zero-emission shipping.
The initiative will allow the fuel supply and fleet sides to overcome the chicken-or-egg dilemma in generating demand for low-to-zero carbon fuels. This ambition is further amplified with the inclusion of MPC Container Ships ASA, a leading container ship company specialising in serving intra-regional trade lanes, owning and operating one of the largest feeder fleets globally.
In addition, the academic partnership with the NUS Centre for Maritime Studies allows scope for further research work into technological solutions for the green corridor cluster, which complements ongoing scientific assessments of climate change risks undertaken by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation NUS Institute for Public Understanding of Risk.