During a recent investor presentation on decarbonisation: strategy and progress BHP’s head of Maritime Safety, Sustainability & Technical, Ashima Taneja noted the resources company’s interest in future fuels.
“We see significant potential in the trial and adoption of low to zero-emission alternatives such as ammonia. We see ammonia as a promising future fuel from a technical and availability perspective. It is the only alternative with no carbon in its composition, is a zero emissions fuel and has pricing and supply dynamics that enable a future potential use in maritime,” she explained.
BHP sees ammonia-fuelled vessels as a key aspect of enabling net zero GHG emissions for shipping of products. Achieving this goal, however, is contingent on reasonable thresholds for price premiums, availability of supply and that there are robust safety standards in
place.
“Given our scale and influence, we are committed to engaging with the ecosystem, and have launched an Expression of Interest to help develop the ammonia value chain along an Iron Ore Green Corridor. These are specific shipping routes where the economics, infrastructure and logistics of low to zero emissions shipping are more feasible and rapid deployment can be supported by targeted policy and industry action,” Ashima noted.
She added that BHP is also working with industry, port authorities and regulators on the establishment of safety standards and crew competency frameworks; and plan to address toxicity challenges of ammonia as a marine fuel through bunkering trials.
In addition to being future focused, BHP provided investors with an overview of its holistic decarbonisation efforts, including:
- Global operational GHG emissions: Covering elimination of diesel via electrification, higher quality metallurgical coal to help steel mills reduce their GHG emissions intensity,
- Value chain decarbonisation: Nine partnerships with steel-makers representing ~20% of global steel production to help tackle long-term steel transition, developing new abatement technology to support customers to decarbonise their processes, advancing readiness for an electric smelting pilot facility, and achieving a GHG emissions intensity reduction of 41% in BHP-chartered shipping of its products in FY2023 against a CY2008 baseline.
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