WinGD’s Volkmar Galke looks ahead with cautious optimism

In common with other suppliers to the maritime industry, WinGD had seen the newbuilding market affected by global events. However, WinGD finished the year strongly, benefiting from a number of new orders at the end of what was a “roller-coaster” year.

“We ended the year with a 36% share of the global two-stroke market, measured by engine capacity – you could say it was a good year at a low level”.

The company benefited from a strong order book for its low-pressure, dual-fuel two-stroke X-DF engines, helped as expanding LNG production capacity translated into newbuild LNG carrier orders.

“We have continued our success in the dual-fuel segment and ended the year with a 59% share of the dual-fuel market.”

The company’s low-pressure dual-fuel X-DF engine remains the preferred choice for large gas carriers, which helped WinGD consolidate its strong position with shipowners. “We achieved a 100% share of the market for LNG carriers in 2020,” Galke said.

While the company has continued to increase its sales of X-DF engines, deliveries of the engine are increasing steadily. The company has now delivered 90 X-DF engines, and its engines have recorded over 850,000 operating hours.

The company had achieved a number of firsts during 2020, including the first deliveries of X-DF engines for two H-Line dual-fuel Newcastlemaxes, as well as the first voyage by CMA-CGM’s dual-fuel Jacques Saade now recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as possessing the world’s most powerful dual-fuel engine.

“The vessel’s engineers have told us that the systems have been running very well. The vessel has made the round trip back to Asia, passing through tropical conditions, and the engines are running fantastically well.”

X-DF 2.0

Galke also noted that the company had received the first order for an engine, an X62DF2.0, featuring WinGD’s iCER (intelligent control by exhaust recycling) after the launch of the X-DF 2.0 platform. The solution will reduce methane slip from the engine by more than 40%.

The main driver for continuing innovation was to meet market demand to minimise methane slip from marine engines. However, simple comparisons between the emissions from an Otto Cycle low-pressure X-DF engine and a high-pressure dual-fuel Diesel Cycle alternative can be misleading, Galke noted. “If you take into account the entire energy consumption from all of the machinery on the vessel, including the main engine, generators, pumps, electric motors, boilers and everything else, the emissions from the two systems, high pressure and low pressure, are equal.”

The market response to the X-DF 2.0 has been extremely positive, Galke noted, from ship owners, shipyards and the engine builder. “One of the reasons that the solution is so attractive to the market is that the next generation iCER design will allow for the removal of other equipment from the engine room.” The effect is to offer emissions reductions with lowest possible increase of CAPEX.

Shipowner interest

Looking ahead at the market in 2021, Galke noted that with the current market at such a low level, “it can only be better next year.”

Based on feedback from WinGD’s sales network, Galke expects the global market to pick up slightly, adding that he did not expect it to go through the roof. “But it will not go down and it will not stagnate.”

Within that outlook, Galke noted that there are market segments where demand was likely to be resilient. Galke focused on the LNG carrier market, noting that a number of vessels were being ordered in connection with Total’s Mozambique Project. The growth in this sector is anticipated to continue this year: a substantial number of slots have been reserved at Korean and Chinese yards for LNG carrier newbuilds in connection with the North Field Expansion (NFE) programme.

However, when asked about interest in LNG as a fuel from outside the LNG carrier sector, Galke noted that the market was slower than in early 2020. Neither container ships nor the bulker market were near a tipping point, where supportive economics might encourage the segment to switch fuel type.

Rather than focusing on vessel segments, an individual vessel’s suitability for dual-fuel propulsion should be considered from an employment perspective. Regardless of the vessel type, whether its a bulker or a container vessel, vessels operating on long-term charters or liners are more likely to opt for an LNG engine than spot market vessels.

“If you have a long-term charter for exporting iron ore from Australia to China, you also know exactly where you can bunker as the same goes with boxship liners so that I would say these employment segments are where you will see faster movement on LNG than in others.”

Although the proportion of the global fleet operating on LNG remains quite small, Galke noted that he expected further growth.

“We think that we could see around 10% of the global orderbook fitted with dual-fuel engines quite soon.”

Future developments

Galke concluded by noting that WinGD was focused on developing solutions to meet the demands of future technology coming into the market.

Among the newest areas for WinGD was the extension of its product range to include hybrid solutions which include shaft generators, batteries, and auxiliary engines as well as other energy sources. The solution, which is still being offered on a case by case basis to interested shipowners, offers an alternative approach to greenhouse gas emission reduction.

WinGD is continuing to act as the designer and the system integrator but is not planning to move into the hardware supplier space today.

“By placing the two-stroke engine at the heart of the vessel’s energy configuration, you can look at the energy mix on board, and look at the equipment specifications and make recommendations about optimisation – whether that means specifying a main engine with fewer cylinders, or by reducing the number of gensets and introducing a battery pack and a smart power management system.”

That is one of the new technologies that WinGD will be exploring in 2021. “We are already in discussions with potential ship owners and ship yards,” Galke concluded.

The role of alternative fuels

Galke noted that while battery hybridisation integrating shaft power solutions represented one approach to meeting IMO 2030 standards, the potential efficiencies offered by other solutions, such as waste heat recovery, were limited.

Leaving aside operational responses, such as speed reductions, Galke noted that the industry was approaching the technical limits of the efficiencies offered by other solutions. Technologies like air lubrication, as well as further hull form optimisation, offered benefits but would be insufficient to meet upcoming emission reduction targets.

“In order to meet the IMO 2030 and IMO 2050 targets, I don’t think there is any alternative to future fuels.” However, Galke noted that none of the alternative fuels under consideration apart from LNG were currently commercially available on a large scale globally with the infrastructure and safety standards required.