onto the next step

Houston company gets greenlight for liquid hydrogen storage system

CB&I got the approval it was looking for on its cargo containment system for liquid hydrogen. Photo courtesy

CB&I, the storage business of Houston-based energy contractor McDermott International, has gotten a preliminary green light for its design of a cargo containment system for liquid hydrogen.

DNV, a classification body for the maritime industry, extended the preliminary approval for the system’s design. CB&I is working on the project with Shell International Trading and Shipping, which transports crude oil, gas, carbon dioxide, and other cargo.

The Shell transportation unit operates the Suiso Frontier, the world’s first ship for hauling liquid hydrogen (LH2). The vessel can carry 75 metric tons of LH2. The Suiso Frontier, which completed its maiden voyage between Australia and Japan in 2022, is the key component of a $360 million coal-to-hydrogen venture.

CB&I designs and builds storage facilities, tanks, and terminals for energy companies. McDermott provides engineering and construction services for the energy industry.

Cesar Canals, senior vice president of CB&I, says his company’s collaboration with Shell and DNV is “making large-scale liquid hydrogen storage and transport more economical. This approval is a major milestone in making this groundbreaking technology available to all companies looking to build LH2 carriers, and we look forward to the possibilities this brings to advancing the hydrogen energy supply chain.”

The containment system’s design is based on CB&I’s technology for onshore storage of LH2. Over the past 60 years, CB&I has designed and built more than 130 onshore storage tanks for LH2.

“The combined cargo containment system and hull design effort aims to address the energy density challenge, benefitting from LH2’s properties and achieving more energy onboard,” says CB&I. “The cargo containment system was integrated into a concept vessel design developed by Houlder, which includes a hull that is optimized for the low-density cargo around … three large tanks.”

Today, LH2 is transported primarily via trucks and pipelines. The Getting to Zero Coalition, a proponent of zero-emission vessels, says the Suiso Frontier represents the first step toward commercializing a global LH2 supply chain by 2030.

“Maritime distribution of hydrogen promises much more flexible energy transfer than transmission of electricity generated from renewables, especially for longer distances,” according to a sponsored article published by Nature.com.

Trending News

A View From HETI

ExxonMobil has secured its seventh CCS contract. Photo courtesy ExxonMobil

Spring-based energy powerhouse ExxonMobil has picked up another project in the carbon capture and storage (CCS) market.

Natural gas pipeline operator Williams Cos. has tapped ExxonMobil to transport and store up to one metric ton per year of CO2 from Williams’ natural gas collection and processing plant in southwest Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale.

Williams will transport natural gas via its Louisiana Energy Gateway pipeline, then process the natural gas and deliver it to the Gulf Coast for export as liquefied natural gas (LNG). The LNG will be used in power generation, residential and commercial heating, and industrial processes.

Williams recently agreed to acquire Momentum Midstream for up to $5.5 billion to expand Williams’ LNG presence in the Haynesville Shale. Haynesville is the country’s third-largest producer of natural gas.

Once the deal closes, Williams will own a $1.5 billion project in southwest Louisiana that will expand capacity of the Transco natural gas distribution system. The system serves power and LNG-export customers. Williams will also gain over 4,000 miles of pipeline and more than one million acres.

While Williams is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it has a significant presence in Houston. Last month, Green Street’s Real Estate Alert reported Williams bought the 64-story, 1.4 million-square-foot Williams Tower south of The Galleria from Invesco Real Estate for more than $300 million. The company will occupy about 360,000 square feet in the skyscraper for its Houston hub.

Williams employs about 800 people in Bayou City, including roughly 700 who work at Williams Tower, and plans to hire another 100 by the end of this year.

The Williams deal is ExxonMobil’s seventh CCS contract. ExxonMobil’s CCS portfolio supports LNG, lower-carbon-intensity steel, ammonia, natural gas processing, industrial gases and methanol.

ExxonMobil has established a “carbon superhighway” along the Gulf Coast to fuel its CCS business. The company owns and operates a more than 1,300-mile CO2 pipeline system, the largest in the U.S.

“Carbon capture is becoming an increasingly important part of industrial operations, but capture alone doesn’t solve the problem of high emissions,” says ExxonMobil. “What matters next is how CO2 is transported, used, and stored.”

ExxonMobil’s CCS initiatives are aimed at capturing a chunk of the rapidly growing CCS market in the U.S. Straits Research forecasts the market will grow from $5.66 billion this year to $13.56 billion by 2034.

“It’s not every day you get to witness the birth of a new American industry, but that’s exactly what’s happening right now at the U.S. Gulf Coast,” Dominic Genetti, senior vice president of CCS at ExxonMobil, wrote in an article published last year on the company’s website.

Trending News