AmmoniaShift's On-Ship Green Ammonia Cracker Cuts Container Ship Emissions by 62%

Oslo, Norway — AmmoniaShift, a Norwegian clean energy startup founded in 2024, has released data from a 14-month commercial sea trial showing its modular green ammonia cracking system reduced CO2 emissions per voyage by 62% on a 14,000-TEU Maersk container vessel operating the Shanghai–Rotterdam route.

The AmmoniaShift Cracker Unit (ACU) is a 40-foot containerized system installed on the vessel's deck that catalytically decomposes green ammonia (NH3) into nitrogen and hydrogen at the point of combustion. The resulting hydrogen-enriched fuel is fed directly into the ship's existing MAN B&W dual-fuel main engine with no mechanical modifications required. The cracking reaction runs at 850°C using a proprietary iron-alumina catalyst developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and the unit produces zero CO2 at the point of fuel consumption — only water vapor and trace NOx, which is mitigated by a standard selective catalytic reduction (SCR) module.

The trial ran from June 2026 to August 2027, covering 23 round-trip voyages and consuming approximately 18,400 metric tons of green ammonia produced by Yara International's Noblesse facility in Porsgrunn, Norway, using hydropower-based electrolysis. Total well-to-wake CO2 intensity came in at 41 grams of CO2 equivalent per megajoule — a 62% reduction compared to the same vessel's heavy fuel oil baseline.

"This is not a hypothetical," said AmmoniaShift CEO Ingrid Solvang. "We operated for 14 months in commercial service. The engine ran cleanly, the catalyst held up, and the economics are now competitive with bunker fuel at current carbon pricing." AmmoniaShift reports that the ACU pays for itself in fuel savings within 3.2 years at current carbon prices of €120 per ton of CO2.

The company is now in advanced discussions with COSCO Shipping and CMA CGM to retrofit ACU units on 30 vessels combined, with installations scheduled to begin in mid-2028.