New academic research from University College London’s Energy Institute argues that the shipping industry’s heavy focus on LNG and methanol as transition fuels could slow progress toward ammonia unless today’s vessels and infrastructure are designed for credible conversion. The paper frames green ammonia, produced using renewable electricity, as the main scalable zero-emission option and tests whether LNG and methanol actually help the sector reach an ammonia-dominant future or create costly detours.

 

How the Authors Assess Transition Pathways

 

The study sets out an analytical framework for evaluating whether a fuel acts as a stepping stone or a dead end. It looks beyond tailpipe emissions and asks whether investment in a given fuel builds assets and capabilities that make the next step easier. The framework is applied across four dimensions: material and financial resources, technological knowledge and capabilities, institutions, and expectations and narratives. Using this lens, the authors conclude that neither LNG nor methanol provides a direct stepping stone to ammonia under current industry practice.

 

LNG as a Conditional Bridge with High Readiness Requirements

 

The paper finds LNG could support a transition to ammonia only under stricter policies that force genuinely ammonia-ready design standards for LNG ships and infrastructure. It acknowledges some overlap in skills and engineering areas such as cryogenic handling, fuel preparation, tank design, regulatory learning and boil-off management. It also points to technology overlap in components and systems that matter for gas fuels. But the key warning is that these advantages only materialise if ammonia readiness is real and not treated as a marketing label.

The authors argue that many assets described as ammonia-ready do not meet the high readiness threshold needed for conversion to be economically and operationally plausible. In practice, readiness often amounts to preliminary design work rather than installed equipment and integrated layouts that reduce retrofit complexity. As a result, LNG risks locking in a fossil fuel pathway while consuming capital that could have been directed to ammonia development and deployment.

 

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Methanol as a Weak Bridge with Limited Physical Overlap

 

For methanol, the paper finds minimal physical overlap with ammonia across storage, containment and bunkering systems. Even if dual-fuel engines can be relatively adaptable across fuels, the authors argue that the surrounding fuel system architecture remains difficult and costly to convert from methanol to ammonia. That matters because retrofits are driven by the hard-to-change elements, tanks, piping, ventilation, safety systems and the overall onboard arrangement, not only the engine.

The paper also stresses that methanol investments do not automatically create infrastructure or material assets that support an ammonia shift. The transition case becomes weaker if methanol is treated as an endpoint rather than a temporary step backed by clear conversion plans and policy pressure.

 

Cost Premiums and Retrofit Economics Drive the Dead End Risk

 

A central point is that transitional fuels can impose two rounds of cost, a higher newbuild price and then another expensive retrofit later. The paper uses a large containership example to illustrate the scale of this risk. It describes significant upfront premiums for LNG dual-fuel and methanol-capable newbuilds, followed by additional retrofit costs to reach ammonia even when some readiness features are included. The authors argue that these stacked costs can make the pathway unattractive, especially if the readiness features were not installed to a high standard from the beginning.

Beyond the balance sheet, the study highlights how expectations and narratives can create lock-in. If LNG or methanol are positioned as sufficient long-term solutions, they can weaken the urgency to build ammonia supply, standards and vessel capability, slowing the formation of a mature ammonia ecosystem.

 

What the Paper Implies for Policy and Industry Strategy

 

The authors’ core message is that ammonia needs to start scaling this decade, even if initially in niches that can expand over time. They argue that credible long-term emissions policy is essential so investors value the optionality of ammonia-ready assets rather than optimising for near-term compliance alone. They also call for stronger support for ammonia through research and development, demonstration trials and clearer regulatory standards, so the pathway is not perpetually deferred by incremental moves into transitional fuels.

Taken together, the study reframes LNG and methanol as technologies that only help if they are deliberately engineered and governed as bridges. Without that discipline, they risk absorbing capital, reinforcing narratives, and delaying the build-out needed for ammonia to become a viable, scalable zero-emission shipping fuel.