NYK breaks ground on in-house facility for Biofuel Testing

Accelerating the practical application of diverse biofuels as marine fuel

NYK held a ceremony on January 29 to break ground at a site in Chiba Prefecture where the company will install a test engine facility* to evaluate the safety of biofuels and accelerate their practical application. The NYK Group will complete the installation of the test engine in June and analyze the biofuel in combustion tests over the next three years. NYK Group companies Boltech Co., Ltd. and Nippon Yuka Kogyo Co., Ltd. will also participate in this project by utilizing their engine-operation and fuel-oil-analysis technologies to verify the potential of various biofuels.

Biofuels are produced from various raw materials, including grains and waste cooking oil, but only a few are currently being commercialized. More types of biofuels are expected to be commercialized in the future as demand for biofuels increases. However, about a year of testing and analysis at an external engine facility, followed by 12–18 months of onboard trials, is needed before continuous shipboard use of new fuels. NYK expects to shorten the test period and the time until the new fuel can be used on board by owning and operating the test engine.

On March 10, 2023, the NYK Group released its medium-term management plan “Sail Green, Drive Transformations 2026 – A Passion for Planetary Wellbeing.” The NYK Group is promoting growth strategies with ESG at the core, based on the Group’s mission statement of “Bringing value to life” and a new corporate vision for 2030, which reads, “we go beyond the scope of a comprehensive global logistics enterprise to co-create value required for the future by advancing our core business and growing new ones.”

*The test engine will be a reused generator from the tugboat Sakigake, which is currently being converted to an ammonia-fueled tug.