Putting the market at the heart of MAN’s development programme

“Speaking as an engineer by training, technology and R&D is the lifeblood of a company like MAN Energy Solutions,” Mr. Jones said. However, bringing new engine platforms like the ME-GA to the market represents a significant investment in terms of time and resources.

The company had 150 engineers working on the project and conducted over 800 tests at the Research Centre Copenhagen.

This connection with the market comes from MAN ES’ strong partnerships and relationships, with shipyards, with engine licensees, and with shipowners in pilot projects. But it also comes from the company’s own connections with the market, which extended well beyond the commercial side of the business.

Mr. Jones said that it was a source of pride that MAN’s high-quality engineers were all grounded in commercial realities. “Our R&D is not internally focused but client-led.”

This outward-facing approach was an integral part of the ME-GA project from its initiation in late 2017 when demand for a lower-cost alternative to the ME-GI engine, primarily from the LNG carrier market, began to make itself felt.

As such, Jones took as much pride in announcing that MAN ES’ new Otto Cycle engines had been specified in multiple newbuilding projects as in the successful public demonstration of the engine itself.

This market-led approach was more important than ever as the industry undergoes what Mr Jones called “an ultimate change”. Decarbonisation and digitization are set to transform the industry. The changes of the energy transition were also being felt in individual trades, with the expansion of existing trades such as methanol.

Mr Jones concluded by noting that the delivery of the latest addition to MAN ES’s dual-fuel portfolio demonstrated the company’s ability to deliver technically-challenging solutions that meet client needs. “We didn’t see anything that surprised us [during the ME-GA development],” Mr. Jones concluded.