Hydrogen, Ammonia and New Marine Fuels: Port Preparedness and the Next Operational Risk Frontier
Eric Maranne, CTO, VR-Crise (e.maranne@vr-crisis.com)
June 2026
Reference: VR-CRISE Research paper, Spring 2026.
Ports are entering a new phase in their industrial history. For centuries, they adapted to coal, gas, and oil; later, to containerization, digitalization, and increasingly automated logistics. They now face another transformation: the rise of vessels using low-carbon[1] energy, vessels powered by hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels, and shore-side electrification.[2]
This emerging transition is both technological and environmental. For port operators, however, it is also a matter of operational risk. New fuels do not simply replace older ones through a perfect displacement effect. On the contrary, they require specific logistics, standards, skills, and a redefined system of cooperation among stakeholders: new storage standards, new safety distances, new bunkering procedures, new emergency scenarios, and new coordination requirements among port authorities, terminal operators, industrial firms, shipowners, emergency services, and local authorities.[3]
The question is not only how ports contribute to the decarbonization of maritime transport, but also under what conditions, and through which operational arrangements, they can absorb the complexity that this transition entails. This article examines the implications of alternative marine fuels for port operators, with particular attention to the critical issues of infrastructure readiness, safety procedures, multi-actor coordination, and crisis preparedness. Its underlying argument is that the energy transition of ports also triggers broader operational transformations, through a series of cascading effects.
This article asks how alternative marine fuels are reshaping port operational risk, and what preparedness, coordination, and resilience mechanisms are required to manage this transition.
The analysis is based on a qualitative review of recent academic literature, European and Asian port cases, and operational-risk frameworks. It links fuel-specific hazard parameters to broader issues of infrastructure readiness, emergency planning, multi-actor coordination, and crisis preparedness.
Key words: Alternative marine fuels; hydrogen bunkering; ammonia release; methanol safety; shore-side electrification; port decarbonization; operational risk; cascading effects; crisis preparedness; multi-actor coordination; port resilience; emergency response planning.
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Ports as Emerging Energy Ecosystems: Industrial Reconfiguration and New Operational Constraints
Several French ports already illustrate this broader reconfiguration, although through different trajectories, levels of maturity, and strategic priorities. Dunkirk is increasingly framed as a low-carbon port-industrial ecosystem, particularly around hydrogen, batteries, and industrial decarbonization. HAROPA’s Seine-axis strategy includes terminal electrification and green-corridor initiatives. Marseille-Fos, for its part, is positioning itself as a Mediterranean platform for hydrogen-derived fuels and other e-fuels, in connection with its broader industrial and energy basin.
These innovative processes are therefore neither uniform nor fully mature. Rather, they should be understood as early indicators of a new operational environment in which energy infrastructure, industrial strategy, maritime services, and, ultimately, organizational safety planning are increasingly interdependent.
Comparable dynamics are also observable elsewhere, including in Northeast- (Korea)[4] and Southeast Asia, although with significant variation across countries and ports. Singapore is no longer confined to the assessment of alternative marine fuels as a future option. It is already experimenting with methanol and ammonia bunkering – sometimes in a challenging way –,[5] as part of a broader strategic effort to preserve its position as a multi-fuel maritime hub.[6]
Malaysia is a second relevant example, particularly with the Port of Tanjung Pelepas, which carried out a first methanol bunkering operation for a dual-fuel container ship and, in addition, is also developing LNG-related operations.
Thailand appears to be at a more exploratory stage, particularly regarding green bunkering, regional maritime corridors, and alternative marine fuels.[7]
Vietnam and Indonesia currently appear to be more engaged in the development of national hydrogen (See their National strategy papers, respectively 2024, 2023) and energy-transition strategies that could open future port-related opportunities than in already mature cases of alternative-fuel bunkering.
These examples make clear that the energy transition of ports does not follow a single pathway. Depending on the case, it combines different dimensions: shore-side electrification, new marine fuels, green corridors, industrial hydrogen, methanol, ammonia, transitional LNG, and the transformation of logistics chains. There does not appear to be a homogeneous port model, but rather a plurality of operational experiments in which infrastructure, safety standards, professional skills, and mechanisms of multi-actor cooperation are evolving — and will continue to evolve.
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From Alternative Fuels to Operational Risk: The Port as a Complex Interface
The operational implications of emerging alternative fuels, including synthetic fuels, cannot be reduced to their physicochemical properties — however well known these may be — although such properties do matter: toxicity, flammability, volatility, pressure, cryogenic constraints, corrosion, dispersion behaviour, and environmental impacts all shape the specific risk profile of each fuel.[8]
Technical Box — Hazard Parameters:
· Hydrogen (H₂): flammability limits 4–75 vol.%, autoignition ≈560°C, relative vapor density 0.07. Key risks: high diffusivity, low ignition energy, jet fires, deflagration in confined volumes, overpressure, high-pressure storage failure (ICSC/ILO, “Hydrogen”).
· Ammonia (NH₃): flammability limits 15–28 vol.%, relative vapor density 0.60, IDLH 300 ppm. Key risks: acute inhalation toxicity, corrosivity, cold dense-gas dispersion after pressurized release, incompatibility with selected materials, toxic plume control (NIOSH, “Ammonia”).
· Methanol (CH₃OH): flash point ≈11°C, flammability limits 6–36.5 vol.%, autoignition ≈464°C, relative vapor density 1.11. Key risks: vapor accumulation in low points, pool fire, drainage contamination, dermal/inhalation toxicity (NOAA CAMEO, “Methanol”).
· Methane/LNG (CH₄): flammability limits 5–15 vol.%, autoignition ≈540°C. LNG adds cryogenic phase hazards: rapid phase transition, brittle fracture, cold burns, vapor-cloud ignition, confined-area overpressure (NOAA CAMEO, “Methane”; NOAA CAMEO, “Liquefied Natural Gas”).
· Batteries/shore power: key risks: arc flash, ground fault, insulation failure, thermal runaway, flammable off-gases, HF generation, reignition, contaminated firewater.
· Operationally: H₂ = ignition/overpressure; NH₃ = toxic plume; CH₃OH = pool fire/drainage; LNG = cryogenic vapor cloud; batteries/shore power = high-voltage/thermal runaway.
One operational aspect that should nevertheless be emphasized, beyond these factors, concerns the practical modalities through which these fuels can be introduced into already dense port environments marked by high levels of functional interdependence.
Ports, indeed, are not isolated technical platforms. They combine maritime traffic, terminal operations, industrial and storage facilities, pipelines, transport connections — whether road or rail — digital and electrical networks, emergency and rescue services, including firefighting capabilities, and, in the background, sometimes substantial and densely concentrated urban or peri-urban populations.[9]
An ammonia-type toxic release, a storage system failure, a disruption of shore-side power supply, a bunkering incident, or a fire involving infrastructure associated with alternative fuels could therefore not remain a strictly technical event. Through potential domino effects, their consequences may be highly disruptive and far-reaching.
Their consequences could affect vessel operations, the continuity of terminal activity itself, access control, emergency response — between chemical-risk specialization and capacity saturation — environmental protection, crisis communication, regional to national supply chains, and the protection of neighbouring populations.
For all these reasons, the energy transition of ports must also necessarily be understood as a broader reconfiguration of traditional operational risk. New fuels effectively entail new interfaces and new forms of operational relationship:[10] between port authorities and terminal operators; industrial companies and maritime services; shipowners and emergency responders; and, ultimately, between infrastructure planning and crisis management.
Beyond the concept of “low carbon” and its development within ports,[11] the issue is therefore whether procedures, responsibilities, safety cultures, and coordination mechanisms are adapted to the complex operational environment generated by these new fuels — an environment that is complex not merely because it is new.
Conclusion: Preparing for Cascading Incidents: Procedures, Coordination, and Crisis Readiness
The emergence of alternative marine fuels has implications that go beyond regulatory compliance or the redirection of infrastructure investment. It also requires a reassessment of operational preparedness, understood as a multi-actor process, and of resilience. Port safety procedures have often been developed around well-known fuels, risks identified and calibrated through experience and stabilized operational routines. Hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels, as well as batteries and shore-side electrification, introduce new, more complex configurations, in which any technical incident may generate cascading operational, environmental, demographic, institutional, and public-safety effects.
For port actors, including both operators and authorities, the central issue is therefore one of collective preparedness. This involves clarifying responsibilities and the division of labour in emergency situations, updating operational response plans, improving or redefining the sharing of relevant information, and developing a better understanding of the specific constraints associated with new fuels.
A crisis of this kind, as considered in this article, would indeed require a coordinated and collective response involving the harbour master’s office, port terminals, industrial sites, ship crews, emergency services and first responders, local authorities, and environmental stakeholders.
More specifically, scenario-based analysis, exercises, and after-action reviews should primarily serve to test coordination, identify procedural and capacity gaps, and consolidate a shared operational culture, as an essential condition of the port energy transition.
[1] Song, Dong-Ping. 2024. “A Literature Review of Seaport Decarbonisation: Solution Measures and Roadmap to Net Zero.” Sustainability 16 (4): 1620. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16041620.
[2] Wei, Huang, Eduardo Müller-Casseres, Carlos R. P. Belchior, and Alexandre Szklo. 2023. “Evaluating the Readiness of Ships and Ports to Bunker and Use Alternative Fuels: A Case Study from Brazil.” Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 11 (10): 1856. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse11101856: Osman, A. I., Nasr, M., Lichtfouse, E., Farghali, M., & Rooney, D. W. (2024). “Hydrogen, Ammonia and Methanol for Marine Transportation.” Environmental Chemistry Letters, 22, 2151–2158. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-024-01757-9.
[3] Yang, Mengyao, and Jasmine Siu Lee Lam. 2024. “Risk Assessment of Ammonia Bunkering Operations: Perspectives on Different Release Scales.” Journal of Hazardous Materials 468: 133757. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.133757
[4] Lee, J., Sim, M., Kim, Y., & Lee, C. (2024). “Strategic Pathways to Alternative Marine Fuels: Empirical Evidence from Shipping Practices in South Korea.” Sustainability, 16(6), 2412. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su16062412
[5] Ng, Clara Kay Leng, Ming Liu, Jasmine Siu Lee Lam, and Mengyao Yang. 2023. “Accidental Release of Ammonia during Ammonia Bunkering: Dispersion Behaviour under the Influence of Operational and Weather Conditions in Singapore.” Journal of Hazardous Materials 452: 131281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2023.131281.
[6] Klopott, Magdalena, Marzenna Popek, and Ilona Urbanyi-Popiołek. 2023. “Seaports’ Role in Ensuring the Availability of Alternative Marine Fuels—A Multi-Faceted Analysis.” Energies 16 (7): 3055. https://doi.org/10.3390/en16073055
[7] On Thailand’s exploratory work on alternative-fuel bunkering, green shipping corridors, and the Port Authority of Thailand’s Green Port Master Plan, see Partnerships for Infrastructure, “Greening the Bunkering of Southeast Asia’s Ports,” February 4, 2026, https://www.partnershipsforinfrastructure.org/newsroom/greening-bunkering-southeast-asias-ports?
[8] See for instance: Duong, P. A., Ryu, B. R., Jung, N., Kang, H., & Kang, H. S. (2023). “Safety Assessment of the Ammonia Bunkering Process in the Maritime Sector: A Review.” Energies, 16(10), 4019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/en16104019
[9] Wei, H., Müller-Casseres, E., Belchior, C. R. P., & Szklo, A. (2023). “Evaluating the Readiness of Ships and Ports to Bunker and Use Alternative Fuels: A Case Study from Brazil.” Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 11(10), 1856. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse11101856
[10] Klopott, M., Popek, M., & Urbanyi-Popiołek, I. (2023). “Seaports’ Role in Ensuring the Availability of Alternative Marine Fuels—A Multi-Faceted Analysis.” Energies, 16(7), 3055. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/en16073055
[11] Shi, J., Zhu, Y., Feng, Y., Yang, J., & Xia, C. (2023). “A Prompt Decarbonization Pathway for Shipping: Green Hydrogen, Ammonia, and Methanol Production and Utilization in Marine Engines.” Atmosphere, 14(3), 584. DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos14030584