Swiss marine power company WinGD and shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) have agreed to cooperate on future fuel vessel applications with ammonia-fueled engines. The memorandum of understanding, signed during the Gastech conference in Singapore this week, indicates a strong intention on the part of SHI to install WinGD’s X-DF-A dual-fuel ammonia engines on forthcoming newbuild vessels.

The cooperation will include preparing X-DF-A for integration with wider ammonia fuel systems and auxiliary machinery across a range of vessel designs, including oil tankers, container ships and ammonia carriers. The project is in line with WinGD’s previously announced timeframe of bringing X-DF-A ammonia engines into service from Q1 2025. (Earlier post.)

WinGD is due to begin validation of its ammonia-fueled engine concept on single and multi-cylinder test engines, in Winterthur and Shanghai, later this year. The validation tests follow combustion concept testing that began in 2021, in concert with simulation and rig tests to understand the emissions characteristics and injection requirements of ammonia fuel.

The X-DF-A, like its methanol-fueled counterpart X-DF-M, will operate on a high-pressure Diesel-cycle combustion process, with liquid ammonia fuel injection supported with a low portion of pilot fuel.

X-DF-A and X-DF-M derive their Diesel cycle efficiency from WinGD’s X-Engines—including WinGD’s popular X92-B, the leading choice for the ultra-large container vessel segment.