Member Info for dustofnations

Yes, Willswag, I'm thinking similar. As the formal trials were already done on another vessel for the derating kit, MSC/Wartsila will just need to re-establish new baseline fuel consumption figures before starting MSAR/bioMSAR trials, but that should not take too long, a loop or two should do the job.

Without doing that, it would be difficult to disentangle MSAR/bioMSAR effect from baseline effect of derating kit.

I get the impression the Wartsila derating kit was tested on a non-MSC vessel because the classification society was American Bureau of Shipping. I note the announcement is that they received a design approval certificate, not sure that's the same as a full class approval — any one with in-depth knowledge please comment whether that would transfer over to Lloyds.

Putting myself in the position of MSC, it does make sense to do both to maximise the synergistic benefits between the solutions (sorry, buzzword!).

We shall see, and as others have pointed out, the time to finalise a fuel supply agreement and stand up the associated supply and bunkering infrastructure is likely the limiting factor, rather than this potential "queue jumping" from Wartsila.

Caveat: 100% speculation.

https://www.wartsila.com/media/news/30-03-2023-wartsila-launches-world-first-radical-derating-solution-for-two-stroke-engines-3248629

https://www.motorship.com/2-stroke-and-4-stroke/w%C3%A4rtsil%C3%A4-develops-engine-de-rating-solution-for-96-bore-powered-boxships/1483116.article

"""
Sangram Nanda, General Manager of Technology Development at Wärtsilä 2-Stroke Services in Switzerland, explained that the Fit4Power solution had been developed in record time in response to specific customer requests to improve the CII profile of larger container vessels.
"""

Being able to do stuff in record time is always easy when you're the OEM 8-)...

The downrating kit was only released onto the market officially for customers around the 30th March. As far as I can tell, the kit received its approvals from a classification society at the end of last year after sea trials (not the one MSC tends to use tho), but did not immediately become available to customers — likely various logistical things to attend to first.

""
Wärtsilä 2-Stroke Services successfully completed the pilot installation of Wärtsilä Fit4Power onboard a container ship with large-bore two-stroke main engine last year. The results proved that a vessel with this kind of main engine, that is now oversized for today’s operating patterns, can save 2,000 tonnes of fuel and reduce at least 6,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually thanks to this retrofit solution. Fit4Power received certificate of product design assessment from American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) in 2022.
""

The timings and delays seem to line up for MSC potentially wanting to test this downrating kit on Leandra. Just speculation and correlating of various dates and additional open source data I've dug into, but running multiple technology trials on a single vessel is not unprecedented.

https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/wartsila-launches-world-first-radical-derating-solution-for-two-stroke-engines/

Not hugely important, but may explain any longer stay in dry dock as, Prep explained.

John On-the-pot-er

Getting additional low-value feedstocks integrated is definitely the way forward for the bioMSAR platform as a whole IMO; that unlocks both supply diversity and additional calories to expand the offering.

Supply diversity is good from a logistical perspective and also economically; you want inputs that are not coupled to the same commodity market segments (i.e. pricing is at least relatively decoupled — price increases in glycerine market should not normally drastically affect CSO prices).

As ever, we're waiting for them to actually get these trials started within the funding envelope. It has been an awfully long wait.

I suspect, but don't know, that Søren Toft is referring to the high-grade biofuels that go into SAFE and biodiesel blends which are made from corn, etc; they are uniform in a molecular sense and expensive to produce and refine.

Currently, there's a completely untapped "ugly" stream of biofuels where the molecules are more jumbled and complex, and hence not suited to the very picky high-performance engines in aircraft, etc. There isn't really anywhere to send them other than bio-digestion and incineration; they've not been exploited and are not even a recognised market segment yet. That's the area that bioMSAR is playing in, especially with Vertoro.

But, I certainly agree that on face, this article doesn't look like a ringing endorsement.

On the fundraising point: I agree with other folk here. History says that when QED/QFI appoint a new joint broker, that is the prelude to a fundraising. Typically, the joint broker is employed to utilise their network of contacts, and run roadshows and events, to engage new institutional and HNW investors. I'm sure it's not imminent, as the process is usually a few months long.

V72, until they finally sign a trials fuel supply and bunkering arrangement, I think it's really hard to predict.

In the latest update, they stated no POC/LONO until H2, so your suggestion is in line with what they've said.

But, they've been poor on timeline guidance so far, so I'm personally not supposing anything on when sailing begins until they give a more concrete statement (hopefully they will very soon, as it seems difficult to maintain their current guidance without signing something shortly).

ATB for the week ahead.

MSC Sweden is one of the old bangers they bought during the boom. She was built in 2002.

I was having a spy on her, and they also seem to have fitted her with a scrubber, which is quite surprising for a vessel of that age.

She was, until recently, APL Sweden and E.R. Sweden before that — https://www.balticshipping.com/vessel/imo/9231262

I wonder if they are doing some experimentation/technology validation with that vessel as well?

Brucey bonus engine tour of same model B&W 12K90MC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwIDlmulgXw

- I suggest people take the dates on the MSC.com schedule as extremely rough placeholders, as with when Leandra was going into dry dock, it kept changing until the last week or so. She's only actually been in the dry dock about 2 weeks so far, after hanging around at the wharf for a while.

- If MSC and Wartsila are trialling other technologies on the same vessel, such as the brand new Wartsila downrating kits for Flex, then she'll likely have an extended sea trials period before reentering service.

- Some slack in the schedule will be required for fully reloading the vessel, crew rotations, etc, which in some ports can take a good few days.

Valkor have withdrawn their Utah DOGM Board filing for this month. They've refiled for the 24th May.

From the conversations I've had in the past with the QED team, the hope is that over time they will be able to establish a specification with the OEMs that, if adhered to, will be able to provide a much shorter and faster route to approval for new feedstocks without needing to do a LONO each time.

It's already the case today for vendors that blend all kinds of complex HFO concoctions; they just need to meet a complex set of specifications that guarantee its safety and performance. Every time bunker vendors and refineries come up with a new blend they don't need to do a full LONO with OEMs — that would just be ridiculous.

Of course, QED can't guarantee how reasonable the OEMs will be, but that's what they hope to push for over the longer term.

It has been stated on numerous occasions that the immediate trials and commercial opportunities in Morocco are for processing of mined minerals using rotary kilns.

The client has numerous kilns operating in parallel.

QED/QFI have shared pictures over the years (including the burner lances, whirlers, etc); this has been discussed at the AGM in detail, amongst other occasions.

The power to slowly rotate the kilns is very modest compared to the thermal energy required to do the drying/processing. I have no idea what kind of drive technology is being used by the client, whether it's from grid electrical, a generator, direct drive, or whatever. Pure speculation, and IMO, is focussing on the least important part of the potential commercial story.

We know who the customer is; it's an open secret. There is no other company that fits the profile described, and other incidental information described by the team over the years.

When you burn a fuel, that is converting chemical energy into thermal energy. My point was that they typically use this direct route for the heat as it is very efficient — rather than generating electricity from the fuel and then turning it back into heat.

I guess I should expand. That doesn't include thermal energy for kilns and calcinators that is produced directly from chemical energy like MSAR, bioMSAR, etc.

100% of their *electricity* needs.

Valkor, AC Oil, Heavy Sweet Oil (HSO), Greenfield, Revkor, Crosstrails Engineer, Green Flame Oil / Trinidad Oil, Oltranz, also potentially Valkor Environmental LLC => All seem to be Steve Byle-related to some greater or lesser degree.

HF, read the URL for the new filing; it says May in it.

We've been talking about it on the forums; we assume if it were to be put before the board in April then it would have been in the prior docket along with the now-withdrawn April filings.

Not ideal, but they have presumably decided the additional delay is worth it for the regulatory/operational simplifications this seems to offer.

Yes, they have withdrawn their April filings and re-filed for May (24th I believe).

As far as I've been able to see from a brief scan, the difference appears to be in the way that the permitting for AC Oil/HSO are combined together to simplify the management of the site and regulatory process.

I guess they considered that change to be worth yet another ~month of delay.

Mr Shrimpsky — I think you might be crowing a tad too early!

The point of the PoC is to prove various different concepts before proceeding with the full LONO: technical, logistical, economic, safety, etc.

For example, they need to prove bunkering in Rotterdam can be performed according to expectations. If all goes well, you follow the same procedures with the same counterparties for the full LONO.

Shipping fuel from Denmark/UK to China and bunkering it over there isn't going to provide proof of anything much.

As another matter: various comments in the RNS indicate MSC are likely installing new equipment and/or making modifications to Leandra that increase fuel efficiency; they will need to establish new baseline figures on HFO before proceeding with bioMSAR. If a scrubber has been installed as we have been advised, this would require HSFO baseline testing, but perhaps they'll also do ULSFO to gather useful data about whatever engine modifications are potentially being undertaken.

It will surely be the case that Leandra will enter normal service route/loop until the fuel deal is done and appropriate infrastructure and procedures are established.

QED team have said Rotterdam is the likely port to bunker MSAR/bioMSAR on numerous occasions, so no idea where idea that fuel needs to be delivered to China is coming from.

I expect Leandra will bunker with multiple fuels anyway, as happened during the previous LONO. They always want to test fuel switching procedures, etc.

Yes, dry dock periods are often very short because they're carefully planned and involve hundreds of people all working at once around the clock. 2-3 weeks very typical, and if you search on Google, well-reputed vendors offer installation of scrubbers within that time window (in parallel with all other dry docking activities).

But, just to clarify, if MSC/Wartsila are doing something really complex like engine upgrades/modifications, that might end up making things take quite a bit longer. No way for us to know, as Quadrise didn't disclose the nature of the "efficiency upgrades" referenced in the recent update — various people on the forums have speculated, but we do not know.

Her latest classification society extension runs out tomorrow, so I guess they'll be taking her off the water promptly.

Good to see some of the preparatory steps for the LONO are finally making substantive progress.

The next big thing is really to ensure that the supply deal is tied up soon, as no matter which specific approach is taken, it's going to take a while to stand up all of the necessary infrastructure, procedures, approvals, etc. Absolutely key that we hear more on that soon.