The headline of NYK deploying its 92,000-dwt coal carrier Pirika Mosiri Maru as a testbed for onboard carbon capture and storage (OCCS) initially appears ironic. The volume of CO2 released from the combustion of the cargo it carries will far exceed the emissions generated, and potentially captured, by the vessel itself.
However, this conclusion misses the wider strategic context. This development is not about decarbonising a single ship; it is about integrating shipping into a broader, system-level carbon management framework.
NYK operates the vessel for Hokkaido Electric Power Co., which runs the Tomato-Atsuma coal-fired power station. In parallel, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is undertaking a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) study for a large-scale carbon capture system at the plant, with the capacity to capture approximately 5,200 tonnes of CO₂ per day from flue gases.
The captured CO2 is intended for storage in deep saline formations in the Tomakomai area, targeting annual storage volumes of 1.5–2 million tonnes by 2030. In addition to permanent storage, options for utilisation are also being explored.
In this context, the deployment of OCCS onboard a coal carrier begins to look less like a contradiction and more like a logical extension of an integrated carbon value chain. This is significant because a central challenge facing OCCS is the absence of downstream infrastructure and the need to address the question of what happens to captured CO2 once it leaves the vessel.
By aligning shipboard capture with a land-based system that already has defined transport, storage and potential utilisation pathways, that challenge is significantly reduced.
This is the ‘97–3’ dynamic working in shipping’s favour. While shipping accounts for roughly 3% of global emissions, it can leverage the large-scale infrastructure investments being committed to the remaining 97%, particularly those related to emissions from heavy industry and power generation, to enable its own decarbonisation options.
The Pirika Mosiri Maru project therefore points to something more important than capturing carbon on a coal carrier as it demonstrates how maritime OCCS can become part of an integrated, cross-sector carbon ecosystem.
Replication of this model would depend on the availability and rate of proliferation of land-based infrastructure, but where it exists, it could improve the viability of OCCS by anchoring it within the much larger industrial systems already being developed on land.
