Japanese shipowner NYK has concluded an agreement with STAX Engineering, a U.S. company leading in maritime emissions capture and control, to use STAX Engineering’s emissions capture and control technology to recover exhaust gases from car carriers.

As explained, emissions capture and control technology uses steel pipes and hoses to connect a barge, a small flat-bottomed ship, or a land-based exhaust-gas treatment system to a vessel’s funnel, allowing exhaust gases to be captured without venting into the air.

This technology makes capturing and controlling exhaust gases possible without installing additional equipment on the vessel. NYK plans to use this technology to provide exhaust gas capture services for NYK-operated car carriers at major ports throughout California. The total amount of potential payment is $16 million, according to NYK.

These operations will start in January 2025. The initiative is in response to the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) expanded exhaust emission regulations for vessels calling at ports in the state.

CARB established emission regulations for oceangoing vessels in 2007. In 2014, CARB mandated that oceangoing container ships, passenger ships, and other vessels calling at California ports reduce their emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), reactive gases (ROG), carbon dioxide, particulate matter (PM), and diesel particulate matter (DPM) while at berth. CARB plans to add car carriers and tankers to this regulation in 2025, making it an urgent issue to be addressed.

Recently, NYK teamed up with Japanese engineering company Chiyoda Corporation  its affiliate Knutsen NYK Carbon Carriers AS (KNCC) to conduct a joint study to quantitatively evaluate and verify the feasibility of the carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) value chain.

The three companies plan to combine their engineering and shipping expertise to promote technical and economic studies of new CCUS methods and contribute to the social implementation of CCUS.