Energy engineering and construction firm McDermott and BW Offshore have revealed that they will work together to produce blue ammonia offshore on a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility. Offshore production of the low-carbon energy source has a range of strategic benefits, including environmental, health and safety, schedule certainty, and competitive levelised cost of ammonia, the partners said.

Swiss clean technology company, Bcomp, and Croatian boatbuilding specialist, Marservis, have announced the start of ferry services in the Adriatic Sea using a solar-powered ferry party constructed with natural fibre composites. The vessel, partly built with Bcomp’s flax-fibre composite, ampliTex^TM, is the result of 30 months of collaboration between the two companies.

The German Government and the state of Lower Saxony have stepped in to rescue the 225-year-old shipbuilder, Meyer Werft, which has teetered on the edge of collapse in recent weeks. Despite an order book worth around EUR 11 billion and work extending until 2031, the company had run out of cash. The crisis was blamed on the consequences of the pandemic, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and soaring commodity prices.

Not even viable onboard carbon capture seems to be generating the same degree of hype as sails, and it is easy to see why; the promise is one of using less energy in the first place. But the benefits will be situational. As well as ensuring that their vessels are sailing on routes with favourable winds, some ships will need substantial deck-strengthening work before sails can be installed, admitted Markus Sannholm, sales director at Norsepower, the first manufacturer to make rotor sails.

ST Engineering officially inaugurated its new shipyard at 55 Gul Road last week, acquired in February 2023 for USD 95 million. The Gul Yard is set to enhance the Group's competitiveness in the ship repair segment, replacing its Tuas Yard, whose lease expires at the end of 2024.

Carbon capture will be no silver bullet, as today’s systems only capture around 30% of the CO₂ from ship exhaust, and use a large amount of shipboard-generated energy to do it.

A nascent market for all-electric feeders could kickstart thrusters-as-a-service, a familiar model which would see shipowners paying an opex fee for modular azimuth pods which could then be switched at the shipyard, similarly to aircraft engines, OEMs have said.