Hydrogen hobbyist charts sea change in shipbuilding

For as long as she can recall, Nesrine Souissi has been interested in the environment. As a child growing up in Tunisia, she would organise clean up projects at her school. Her dedication did not go unnoticed by her teachers. 

“They even gave me a certificate,” she recalls with a laugh. 

So, it was no surprise that she would go on to read energy studies at university, focusing on hydrogen for her subsequent master’s degree. Her interest in lower carbon transport technologies also led her to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES), where she participated in the OIES-Aramco Fellowship, which promotes research into all aspects of the energy transition. It is supported by Aramco Europe’s citizenship program. 

OIES-Aramco Fellowship 

The Fellowship provides the opportunity to build an independent research career and covers areas of the energy sector such as international relations between producers and consumers of energy; the economic development of producing nations and the geopolitical factors that shape the adoption and advancement of different technologies. 

As one of the 2024 cohort of OIES-Aramco research fellows, Nesrine researched the potential of ammonia as a fuel for the maritime sector and has returned to the institute this year to pursue further studies while she also works as an energy consultant. 

“The Aramco fellowship was a great opportunity for me, and I hope also for others in the future,” she says. 

Like other OIES-Aramco scholars, she appreciates the flexibility of the program, which allows post-graduate students to pursue research into subjects they are passionate about. 

“In that sense it often feels more like a hobby than work,” she says. “In the private sector it is rare for you to be able to choose what you are working on. The institute is very different because you have that degree of flexibility around the research areas you want to tackle, within the parameters of its focus subjects.” 

From hydrogen to ammonia 

For Nesrine, that interest has revolved around emerging hydrogen and ammonia transportation pathways – especially in the shipping industry where her recent research has been focused. 

She believes shipping is at a crucial inflection point as shipbuilders seek to anticipate the direction of future marine engine design during a period of competing technologies. 

Miscalculating could be costly given the huge costs involved in the $115.2 billion global shipbuilding industry. 

“It represents a dilemma for shipowners choosing between conventional engines and those that can run on Liquefied Natural Gas, ammonia or both in the case of dual-fuel designs. 

“They need to make a technology call now for an asset that may have a lifespan of 30 years or more,” she says. 

These decisions must be informed not only by the technical merits of the different technologies but also by questions of current and planned legislation, regulatory frameworks, infrastructure availability and feedstock costs. 

Such scenario modelling is a central theme in both her own research as well as other OIES-Aramco scholars working on papers that cover different aspects of the energy transition and its many stakeholders. 

Having published her latest paper this month on ammonia applications in the maritime sector, Nesrine is now looking ahead to the next phase of her research career as she consolidates her findings and continues on a journey of scientific discovery which began all those years ago in her childhood classroom in Tunisia.