With regards to the maritime security situation in the Red Sea: We are following the situation closely and are in dialogue with ship owners carrying cargo on our behalf and with other actors in the industry.
We have chosen to reroute ships away from the area. Until further notice, we have also paused new activities that involves transit through the region.
With over 170 vessels working for us on the Norwegian continental shelf, including supply, standby, anchor handling vessels and tankers, we are a significant charterer on the market.
We do not own any vessels, but we lease them from a number of different shipping companies, which means that the shipowners are responsible for safe operation and follow-up of the vessels, while Equinor decides where the various vessels will sail and the tasks they will perform.
All shipping companies operating for us must be prequalified before contracts are entered into, and all vessels undergo regular thorough inspections.
Our seaborne transportation of crude, liquid refinery products, liquid petroleum gas and LNG volumes involves more than 2300 voyages worldwide per year and moves about 100 million tonnes annually.
Today, over 170 ships are at work collecting and transporting energy products, fetching and bringing equipment and providing emergency standby services just for Equinor – an enormous number of transport movements.
The maritime sector represents 6% of total greenhouse gas emissions in Norway and 2–3% of global emissions.
As a producer and supplier of fuel to the maritime sector, Equinor has extensive maritime activity around the world, including around 175 vessels on contract with the company at any one time.
Equinor has set the following ambitions for its maritime activity:
As a supplier of fuel to the maritime sector, Equinor’s ambition is as follows:
The ocean, and the expertise associated with it, is one of Equinor’s priority areas. Low carbon shipping is a natural part of this commitment.
We are undertaking a comprehensive newbuilding plan to renew our shipping fleet.
The vessels are equipped with new carbon-efficient technologies such as dual fuel LNG, LPG, LVOC (Liquified Volatile Organic Compounds) to be blended with LNG as fuel, and hybrid battery systems.
A wide variety of measures are employed to reduce emissions from our logistical operations:
No sulphur emissions, reduces NOx emissions by between 80-90%, reduces CO2 emissions on a well to wake basis by up to 18% in combination with low methane slip engine technology. Infrastructure have been developed globally in key areas but still needs further development. Equinor have as a natural gas and LNG producer high focus on reduction of upstream emissions and methane slip in the value chain.
With a Well-to-Tank GHG footprint reduction of about 19% in addition to low NOx and SOx emissions, LPG is an interesting low carbon fuel with lower infrastructure cost than LNG. Implementation of Dual Fuel LPG propulsion system on LPG carriers have gained traction and is the standard for newbuild vessels in larger segments also taking benefit of utilizing cargo as fuel. Equinor have a total of 8 gas carriers with Dual Fuel LPG propulsion.
The new Rainbow Spirit and Eagle Blane shuttle tankers contracted to Equinor combine LNG with the use of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) evaporating from the cargo of oil, which also has the major advantage of preventing the environmentally-harmful VOCs from reaching the atmosphere, a challenge with conventional tankers. When cooled and compressed into liquefied LVOC, this cargo evaporation can supply between 20 and 30% of the ship’s fuel requirements.
No vessels of this size are running on hydrogen today, but there are several trial projects underway on vessels ranging from ferries to cargo vessels. If hydrogen is produced from natural gas with carbon capture and storage or clean electricity, it can be produced and utilized as an energy carrier with very low carbon intensity in a well to wake basis. However, the storage complexity is high for hydrogen and for larger vessels conversion of hydrogen to a more suited energy carrier is required.
Clean hydrogen can be converted to ammonia for more efficient storage, handling and transport in the value chain. The shipping industry is maturing required ammonia technology but the key barrier for implementation in deepsea shipping is safe handling and identification of required barriers to manage the toxicity. Several supply vessels on the NCS are in projects for exploring innovative ammonia technologies, and ammonia as energy carrier is planned to be utilised in the offshore fleet well within 2030.
Clean hydrogen can be combined with a carbon source from for instance direct air capture to form e-methanol. E-methanol handling is comparable to conventional liquid fuels in shipping but some required additional barriers for handling and containment. The cost level of methanol and other syntetic fuels are expected to be higher than clean ammonia but methanol could still be a preferred solution for certain shipping segments. Methanol is already in use as a shipping fuel on larger vessels.
For large supply vessels and shuttle tankers, the batteries stabilise and even out the power supply onboard. The ships spend a lot of time at sea, and the batteries assist the generators so that they use less conventional fuel. Currently batteries are only a supplementary power source, since powering an entire vessel by battery would consume too much cargo space.
Norway has established a programme to achieve the world’s most efficient and environmentally friendly shipping.
The Green Shipping Programme aims to find scalable solutions for efficient and environmentally friendly shipping. The results will be cost-effective emission cuts, economic growth, increased competitiveness, and new jobs in Norway. Authorities and industry actors are participating in the programme and are working together to achieve these goals.
What we will achieve:
The Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping is a not-for-profit, independent research- and development center working across the energy- and shipping sectors with industry, academia, and authorities. With Partners, the Center explores viable decarbonization pathways, facilitates the development and implementation of new energy technologies; builds confidence in new concepts and their supply chains; and accelerates the transition by defining and maturing viable strategic pathways to the required systemic change.
The SCC is an initiative developed by the Global Maritime Forum, an international not-for-profit organisation, with the aim to decarbonise shipping. The initiative was launched in October 2020, and provides a shared, global framework to quantitatively assess and disclose emissions from vessel chartering activities.
The goal is to be transparent on environmental performance and thereby increase awareness, unite fronts and drive improvements in the industry. The SCC is consistent with the policies and ambitions of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), including its ambition to reduce GHG emissions from international shipping by at least 50% by 2050.
Currently, 34 charterers have signed up for the SCC. This includes peers like Shell, TotalEnergies and Chevron, as well as other major charterers of shipping services like Maersk Tankers, Trafigura and Anglo American. Equinor became a signatory of SCC in 2020.
