July 12, China Shipbuilding Industry Association released data showing that from January to June, China's shipbuilding completion, new orders and hand-held orders in terms of deadweight tonnage accounted for 49.6% of the world's total, 72.6% and 53.2%, in terms of the revised gross tonnage accounted for 47.3%, 67.2% and 46.8%, are ranked the world's first.1 -June, the shipbuilding industry concentration remained at a high level, the top 10 companies in the volume of new orders accounted for 61.3% of the country; the top 10 companies in the volume of orders on hand accounted for 62.0% of the country.

Among them, as of the end of June this year, China Shipbuilding's Jiangnan Shipbuilding, Hudong-Zhonghua and other shipyards in the order of green ships accounted for more than 90% of the fuel clean trend, the shipbuilding industry will open up a round of green led by the boom cycle.

"Green orders" continue to flow

Zhou Xuhui, deputy general manager of China Shipbuilding Group Guangzhou Shipbuilding International, said that at present and even in the next 5-10 years, the shipbuilding industry is in a new round of renewal cycle. "In 2005, the global shipbuilding industry bid farewell to the super cycle, after nearly 20 years of digestion, the current is the golden period of ship product renewal."

Zhou Xuhui said, "the last super cycle of production of ships in energy consumption, safety, functionality, technology and other aspects of performance and now compared to the gap is far, the ship industry is expected to the next 5-10 years as a whole is in the replacement phase."

Throughout the shipyards to take orders, under the policy constraints, the current clean energy-powered ships as the main market. Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that China's new ship order structure optimization, repair ratio (revised gross tonnage / deadweight tonnage) reached 0.485, at the best level in history. 2022, China's new orders for green power ships accounted for about 50%.

At the end of June this year, Nantong CIMC Pacific Offshore & Engineering Co., Ltd (CIMC Pacific Offshore & Engineering) and Changhang Cargo Co. ("CSCL") in Shanghai, with a total contract value of more than RMB 250 million. As a new generation of clean energy river-sea direct dry bulk carriers in China, this ship type can sail in domestic offshore navigation area and ports in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and below, and each ship is equipped with one dual-fuel main engine and one propeller.

At the same time, the shipbuilding site of Yangzhou COSCO Shipping Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. was busy, a 14,000 TEU container ship under construction was slowly moved out of the dock and smoothly entered the wharf for outfitting under the traction of tugboat. This ship model adopts the optimal matching design of propulsion facilities such as invisible bulbous bow, large-diameter high-efficiency propellers and energy-saving conduits, so that the ship's rapidity and low energy consumption can be fully realized. In addition, it is equipped with axle generator and automatic control system for cargo hold fan, which effectively reduces the ship's total energy consumption and fuel consumption rate, and can reduce carbon emission by 5.9%.

"Building green ships to meet domestic and international low-carbon shipping demand is an important initiative of Yangzhou COSCO Shipping Heavy Industry to enhance its market competitiveness." The company's responsible person introduced that the company has delivered 11 ships so far this year, and 19 ships have been under construction and have not yet been delivered, with the expected delivery time of the orders in hand lined up until 2026.

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At the same time that "green orders" are growing, many ship enterprises are also contributing to the R&D and application of intelligent technologies, the construction of green and intelligent ship operation facilities, and the standardized design and manufacture of green and intelligent ships.

In addition, data from consulting organization Clarkson shows that at present, the share of ship capacity in the global fleet that is more than 20 years old is 8.7%, while the share of ship capacity that is more than 15 years old has reached 21.8%. Calculated by the number of vessels, the proportion of vessels over 20 years and 15 years old is as high as 39% and 49.9% respectively. In the future, with the trend of low-carbon and carbon-free shipping industry, green renovation or renewal of old ships is also expected to become a new market.

Green concept throughout the whole process

At China Shipbuilding's Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard, a 13,000-case dual-fuel container ship has introduced liquefied natural gas (LNG) in addition to traditional petroleum-based fuels, which can directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 28%. In addition, the ship has a unique design of a green windshield on the bow, which the shipyard workers affectionately call the "Green Head Monster". This design can reduce the fuel consumption of the ship by about 2% during normal traveling.

It is reported that the bow windshield is a new design in the last two years, which can effectively reduce the wind resistance when the ship is traveling, and reduce carbon emissions by reducing fuel consumption. The ship is not simple in other places besides this new design.

"One is that we are optimizing the performance of the ship through the software of CFD of hydrodynamics; and also using bubble drag reduction technology on the currently existing ship, making it energy efficient." China Ship Hudong-Zhonghua container ship chief technical expert Yuan Hongliang said.

Green ships are not only reflected in the power, but also in all aspects of design and construction. In the past, in the design stage, many times presented 2D drawings, many details will be ignored. In a 3D showroom in Jiangnan Shipbuilding's Digital Shipbuilding Laboratory, as long as you put on 3D glasses, you can watch many of the subtleties of the design in an immersive way.

Due to the complexity of traditional 2D drawings, pipeline interference may occur during ship construction, requiring rework and modification. This unnecessary rework usually accounts for more than 10% of a ship's construction cycle. With the adoption of 3D modeling design, shipowners and construction personnel can understand the drawings more intuitively and complete the design and construction.

Wang Jie, director of digital design at Jiangnan Shipbuilding of China Shipbuilding, said that the application of digital energy-saving means goes far beyond this. Container ship due to the use of segmented construction, the previous hull together after the need to lift the container into all the box position to measure the accuracy, but now only need to scan the ship's box position through the equipment, you can build a 3D model to get all the data.

"The road of greening and high-quality development is a must. On the R&D end, we have adopted green ship R&D, carbon reduction during the manufacturing process, and carbon emission calculation for the whole industry chain." Zhou Qinghua, director of the Jiangnan Shipbuilding Development Institute of China Shipbuilding, said.

Gradual development of clean energy

Li Kun, director of the Ship Transportation Technology Research Center of the Institute of Water Transportation Science of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, pointed out that the future of clean energy for ships will show diversified development, and it is difficult to form a fuel monopoly due to the progressive emission reduction requirements, technological maturity, progress of infrastructure construction, and contribution to emission reduction. "The future period, will be oil-based, LNG, methanol as a supplement, other different clean energy gradually develop the pattern of application. In the long term, methanol has a greater advantage than LNG, and methanol has a greater latecomer and potential advantage."

"In the subsidy policies and encouragement policies related to green ship transportation formulated previously, the promotion of LNG, electricity and hydrogen was emphasized. In various policies formulated in recent years, the application of methanol in ships has been proposed, and marine methanol fuel has been emphasized." A source from a clean fuel ship supplier said, "LNG refueling costs rise and fall, methanol costs are competitive and economically viable, and the long-term development is worth looking forward to."

In June, Maersk said it would retrofit one of its existing ships to become a dual-fuel methanol-powered vessel, sailing on green methanol fuel. This is the first such engine retrofit in the industry and is scheduled to begin in mid-2024, with the same retrofit to be carried out on other vessels of the same class during a special inspection of the vessel to be carried out in 2027.

Leonardo Sonzio, Head of Maersk Fleet Management and Technology, said: "We have set an ambitious target of net-zero emissions for all our operations by 2040 and are committed to playing a leading role in decarbonizing the logistics industry. Retrofitting container ship engines to be able to sail on methanol fuel is an important part of the company's strategy. With this move, we hope to pave the way for the industry's future large-scale ship retrofit program, thereby accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to green fuels and ultimately validating that engine retrofitting can be a viable alternative to new-build methanol vessels."

Meanwhile, the world's first 10,000-tonne electricity-to-green methanol project is set to open in August on Dalian's Changxing Island. The project, which is being developed by Zenergy Group in cooperation with Dalian Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Group, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, is expected to have a total investment amount of $60 million (about RMB 434 million) and is scheduled to go into operation in June 2024, the company said.

As for the development of small and medium-sized ships along the coast and inland waterways, Peng Chuan-sheng, chief researcher at the Institute of Water Transportation Science under the Ministry of Transportation, said that all of them can be decarbonized through electrification in the future. At present, more than 50 ships with higher power in China are using power battery drive, especially in some special scenarios with relatively short mileage, such as short-distance fixed routes, ro-ro vessels or harbor tugs electrification has both economic and technical feasibility.

It is worth mentioning that up to now, the cruise ship "Three Gorges of the Yangtze River 1" has sailed nearly 300 voyages, carried 280,000 passengers, used more than 1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by more than 700 tons, which is a "green ship" that truly realizes zero emission, zero pollution and zero noise. It is a "green ship" that truly realizes zero emission, zero pollution and zero noise, and plays a brand new chapter of eco-tourism between the high gorges and flat lakes, which is quite a green leading demonstration role.

"Coastal and ocean-going large ships, based on the internal combustion engine in the future will be based on methanol and ammonia as the main decarbonization path, LNG, ammonia and hydrogen, due to the large difference with the traditional fuel used now, which leads to the application and storage on the ship, shore fuel supply system should be improved. The cost of retrofitting becomes one of the important factors that shipowners need to consider." Peng Chuan Sheng said.