What is the “Safe Havens for ammonia-fuelled ships” report about?
A Safe Haven is a designated space for taking refuge from an ammonia release aboard an ammonia-fuelled ship. The need is most immediate for the first generation of these vessels, where there's little precedent to draw on, but the same shared, workable definition should carry through to the generations that follow as ammonia fuel adoption grows.
That definition doesn't need to start from scratch. Offshore oil and gas and onshore chemical processing industries have decades of experience operating Safe Havens, or their equivalents, to manage similar toxic gas hazards, and this report draws on that experience, translating what's already been learned into a maritime context.
The International Maritime Organization’s Interim Guidelines for the Safety of Ships using Ammonia as Fuel require Safe Havens onboard ammonia-fuelled vessels. The guidance is high-level, and the Safe Haven concept is still new to maritime, which leaves room for differing interpretations across the industry, and an opportunity to build a shared, evidence-based approach before the ammonia fleet scales. Getting this right early also helps avoid complications with Class, Statutory compliance, and the transfer of Class and Flag through a vessel's life.
Our aim is a common approach to defining, designing and regulating Safe Havens, one that one that classification societies, flag administrations and vessel designers can then use to define their own acceptance criteria. It's structured in two parts: the first introduces the Safe Haven concept and the use cases it needs to address, and the second sets out the specific design and regulatory requirements needed to achieve the desired level of safety.
What's inside
We've grouped the review into four areas, building a common framework for assessing Safe Havens:
- Scenario definition: bounding, worst-case conditions, including low-frequency, high-consequence events, that a Safe Haven's performance should be tested against.
- Protection: how long a Safe Haven needs to keep people safe, what hazards it has to guard against, and how to test for both. This draws on human factors evidence from offshore and chemical industry practice.
- Command and control: what a Safe Haven needs to support crew coordination, situational awareness, and execution of the emergency response plan.
- Accessibility: location, escape routes, and ingress and egress requirements, so everyone on board, including anyone injured, can reach a Safe Haven safely, and, if necessary, safely abandon the vessel.
Who is this report for?
The report is useful for anyone involved in designing, regulating or operating ammonia-fuelled vessels, including:
- Classification societies
- Flag administrations
- Ship designers and naval architects
- Shipowners and operators
- Ammonia bunkering and offshore industry safety practitioners
- Chemical industry safety practitioners
- Policymakers and regulators
Key findings:
Three findings stood out from the cross-sector review:
- Human-centred systems, not standalone entities: Safe Havens shouldn't be designed in isolation. They should be part of a vessel's wider emergency response, built around the people who'll use them.
- Standardisation is needed: Safe Haven performance needs to be assessed consistently, against worst-case scenarios rather than best-case assumptions.
- Three design requirements: Protection, Command and Control, and Accessibility, each of which are explored in more detail within the report.
The report also sets out how that protection needs to hold up over time, including through-life verification and maintenance.