Low Carbon Fuels in Offshore Vessels with Aditya Grover

00:00:00 Speaker 1
This episode of the Energy Pipeline is sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and gas. Since the 1930s, Caterpillar has manufactured engines for drilling, production, well service and gas compression. With more than 2,100 dealer locations worldwide. Caterpillar offers customers a dedicated support team to assist with their premier power solutions.

00:00:27 KC Yost
Welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast with your host, KC Yost. Tune in each week to learn more about industry issues, tools and resources to streamline and modernize the future of the industry. Whether you work in oil and gas or bring a unique perspective, this podcast is your knowledge transfer hub. Welcome to the Energy Pipeline. Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of the Energy Pipeline Podcast. Today we'll be visiting with Aditya Grover, Global Strategy Manager at Caterpillar Marine will be discussing the challenges and opportunities of using lower carbon fuels in offshore vessels. So, hey, welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast. Aditya.

00:01:12 Aditya Grover
Hey. Good morning, KC. Thank you for having me. And a big thank you to Caterpillar for giving me this opportunity.

00:01:20 KC Yost
Great to have you here. Looking forward to the discussion. So before we start talking about all the cool things happening at Caterpillar Marine, if you would please take a few minutes and tell us about you.

00:01:33 Aditya Grover
All right, thank you. Thank you, KC. Well, you know, I started my career just about 20 years ago in 2004 as a Marine engineer with a famous Danish shipping company, A.P. moller Versk. I worked on a variety of ships with them, you know, container ships, gas carriers, container carriers. So I had a very broad technical experience with them before I moved ashore, I would say the first decade of my career, the first 10 years I was in more in technical and operational roles within shipping and energy markets. In 2014, which was, you know, having started in 2004, I branched into more commercial side of the business where I've been involved in B2B sales, business development, running a P and L for a big vessel owner in the region and most recently in Caterpillar in a strategy function. So I've had the privilege of working in oil and gas marine energy markets for about two decades now and a broad variety of roles which have been very interesting and challenging along the way.

00:02:43 KC Yost
Sweet, sweet. How long have you been with cat?

00:02:47 Aditya Grover
I joined Cat about a little over three and a half years ago into the marine division. I joined them in Singapore and most recently about a year and a half, Caterpillar requested me with my new role and function to relocate to Dubai.

00:03:03 KC Yost
Excellent, excellent. So good morning from Dubai, 8:00 here in Houston. What is it, 5:00 in the afternoon there?

00:03:12 Aditya Grover
It's a little longer than that. 6:00pm okay.

00:03:17 KC Yost
All right. Sorry, missed the translation. Oh, that's right. We're not on daylight savings time here in the US So. All right, good, fine. Tell us about Cat Marine. You got a little elevator speech on on Cap Marine?

00:03:32 Aditya Grover
Yeah, I mean I think you know, Caterpillar. Caterpillar itself. Let me start with Caterpillar itself, right? I mean obviously, you know, this year we complete 100 years as a business. We are Fortune 100 stock listed in the United States. A lot of legacy around, you know, construction, machinery, mining, as well as, you know, producing engines, gen sets for various applications around the world, you know, and then diving into, you know, in our, in our division which is Cat Marine, which is broadly part of what we call Caterpillar Oil and gas and marine division. It's a fairly big division. We are roughly about US $5 billion in revenue, oil and gas and marine combined as of last year. We have lots of people across based more than 20 countries that work in different markets and different regions. But within Marine itself we are very focused on eight big segments. I would say we have the more commercial segments which include segments like offshore tug, inland waterway, and then we have the more non commercial segments which are like government navies, pleasure craft, yachting, which are not so commercially driven but necessary as well. We've been around in the marine business for 40 plus years. We have more than 200,000 engines out there that are probably all across marine applications and different power ranges and product power ratings. Obviously as a business, you know, marine is a global business. It's always mobile, it's complex due to the fact that we are working offshore in the water and sea and so forth. But really over the years we have built our strong brand in the marine space for our durability, for our reliability and most importantly our service network globally. We are serviced, we service our customers with more than 190 dealers across the world.

00:05:40 KC Yost
I'm sorry, 190. 190. My, oh my, my, oh my. Excellent, excellent. So you and I have talked. I'm an old guy. I, I started going offshore in the mid-70s and did that. 70s and 80s and all of that. Two things I remember in getting offshore in a crew boat or in a work boat or that type of operation, two things stood out in my mind. One, I wish we had a boat that would go more than 15 knots and. But redundancy was always extremely important. You never went offshore without having a redundant system available to you because you were stuck out there. Like you said, you're you're out there and there, there's. There's typically no one there easily to come in and help you out. Is that still the case? I, you know, what kind of offshore vessels are there and nowadays, and do they go faster than 15 knots? And is redundancy still extremely important when it comes to engines and other offshore assets?

00:06:55 Aditya Grover
Yeah, good question. Thank you. Thank you for that, KC. So, I mean, obviously from the time you went offshore, I think a lot has changed and a lot has not changed. So what has changed is that. What has changed is that boats go a lot faster. You know, a normal crewboat can do anywhere between 30 to 40 knots now.

00:07:17 KC Yost
No, really.

00:07:18 Aditya Grover
And that's, and that's already double. So that's kind of almost the expectations from charterers. Obviously, this has improved mobility of crew and efficiency in the field and so on, so forth. But getting into a little bit into your question of what kind of offshore vessels are really there. I mean, of course, broadly offshore, you have two segments. What you talked a little bit about, oil and gas, right. That's been around for 50 plus years. We have been drilling for oil and gas offshore. That's one big part. But in the last 15 years, let's say early 2010, came the inception of offshore wind, which came to birth through the need for renewable energy and the fact that fossil fuels continuously burning will not be helpful for our environment and we have to find a way to build alternate energy resources. So broadly, within offshore, you have these two segments, one albeit much younger than the other, but ultimately they all need to be served by assets. Right. So I like to break it down in two or three different ways. One is, you know, one is mobility, Right? Mobility is moving people offshore, which you need to do constantly. So you need crew boats or crew transfer vessels. And then you have more kind of the platform supply vessels, which are more around moving pipes, cement, liquid products, and so on, so forth.

00:08:49 KC Yost
Right.

00:08:49 Aditya Grover
And then you have what you call the subsea support, which is you have a lot of pipe work that needs to be done on the ground or on the seabed, as they would say. So a lot of the work needs to be done to lay pipes, connecting lines and so on and so forth. Or in now, in the case of offshore wind, you need to transmit the power, right. So you need to run electric cables or pretty big cables, I would say.

00:09:12 KC Yost
Right.

00:09:12 Aditya Grover
And then finally you have, you know, maybe a broader classification, what you call specialized asset classes that can vary from, you know, very specialized cable laying to very specialized subsea trenching vessels. So those are very niche but yet they are needed for specialized activity. And then on the wind side you have the large turbine installation vessels, you know, which help you put the monopiles into the ground. And those are very specialized high value assets. So you have a variety of assets really driven by the purpose that they need to serve in the field. And of course their purpose decides the endurance and the endurance decides the engine and the power and the way the propulsion system needs to exist on the vessel. Which is where Cat Marine comes into the picture.

00:10:02 KC Yost
I see, I see, I see. What types of vessels are off there? I mean I've heard terms like CTVs, SOVs, W T, I, Vs. What, what are those? What, what do those acronyms stand for?

00:10:20 Aditya Grover
Yeah, I mean it's, it's really all the acronyms you mentioned are very focused towards offshore wind. You know, CTVs really being crew transfer vessels or what you probably refer to as CTVs are mostly like in a catamaran. So they kind of have two hulls. I would say they provide speeds upwards of 25 knots, some now even going to 30, 35 and customers having emissions of even 40 knots now. So it's really to take the technicians to each of the turbines and being able to service the blades and the turbine installation. Sovs is kind of a bit similar service operation vessel. They are also working in offshore wind, but they have the ability to have 60 or 90 people on board for long duration. So when you need to work in the offshore wind farm for say 30 days and you need to be offshore for such a long period and you need technician people, then this is a big platform or a big vessel that allows to house anywhere from 60 to 100 people and really do a lot of the service and maintenance. And the final one which is the wtiv, these are the, you know, the specialized really focused high value assets for turbine installation. So that means when you have a brand new farm and you want to build something from scratch, you need these big, big vessels to go in there and help with the installation and building the farm. So that's kind of the three main vessels in offshore wind, I would say.

00:11:53 KC Yost
So, so that, that doesn't even talk about the, the. Well, offshore pipelining is what I did, right? So I'd be on lay vessels and, and, and jet barges and, and they'd have eight anchors out and we would move by moving anchors and tugboats and, and all of that kind of stuff. So that, that category isn't even discussed in this CTV sov wtiv. This is, that's a totally different discussion, correct?

00:12:24 Aditya Grover
Yeah, that's more towards oil and gas. You know, to my earlier comment, a little bit, the two segments, right, so the anchor handlers, PSVs, the barges and the tugboats are probably more to the traditional oil and gas drilling operations or FPSO support as you would call them. If you want I can talk a little bit about each type of vessel there.

00:12:45 KC Yost
No, that's, that's okay, that's okay. I just trying to, trying to make a connection between my experience 50 years ago and what's happening now in the wind world. And I'm not finding much connection there other than you jump offshore overboard, you get wet. Right. Okay, so net zero is a term that's used quite a bit and let's look at it for new builds of facilities. So how viable and ready are alternative fuels and batteries and other emission reduction solutions for these offshore assets that we're talking about?

00:13:30 Aditya Grover
No, great question. And I think that this is what keeps all of us awake at night, right? In a nice way. And cat marine obviously, you know, putting all our people, human capital, but also, you know, our financial capital to look at solutions to get to net zero. This is a goal that has been sent by imo, which is the International Maritime Organization. So let me kind of try to break it down a little bit. So.

00:13:59 KC Yost
Good.

00:13:59 Aditya Grover
Firstly, I think we have to acknowledge that we are not going to go from 100 to 0 no matter what happens, right? It's a little bit like our cars on the road. You're not gonna go from a big heavy truck to zero emission the next morning unless you scrap all the cars in the street and everyone changes them, which is not gonna happen. So which is why commonly we use the word energy transition. And I almost see it in kind of like two steps. So one step is to, you know, kind of reach some sort of gradual reduction, whether it's 20 to 30% or 20 to 40%. And then the next big step would be to go to zero. And I think there are two or three things here which are helping us to get to net zero. The first one is the most easy one, right? Which is simple things like automation, connectivity, monitoring our vessels and enabling better decision making on land and on offshore. Ultimately, we want everyone in the ecosystem to make better decisions so that the crew make better decisions so that we optimize the load on the switchboard, we optimize fuel consumption. And to put it simply, if you burn less fuel, you have less emissions, right? That's the low hanging fruit which a lot of the owners and operators have taken on board, some still haven't. But ultimately, you know, having using data and the tools we have from a connectivity and monitoring standpoint today and satellite, you can take a lot of active day to day steps to improve that. So that's step one.

00:15:40 KC Yost
Okay, good.

00:15:42 Aditya Grover
Right. And then kind of step two and step three, maybe, or maybe then I wouldn't say steps really, but maybe all combined because they're all pathways and everyone progressing at a different stage. The step two is really the fuel itself. Right. Now, we all know alternate fuels is a big subject not only for marine, but the whole planet. Right. And we are looking at marine specifically at an application level. Right. Because our enterprise, or caterpillar enterprise is serving multiple industries. Mining, construction, electric power or power systems, and then marine and oil and gas. And everyone's got their own nuances, own logistical challenges and limits, should I say? And all of this needs to be considered in terms of what the solution offering we can make. So if you look at the planet today, everyone's talking about lng, methanol, ammonia, hydrogen.

00:16:41 KC Yost
Right.

00:16:41 Aditya Grover
But when you break it down to marine, I think we have to be very mindful and thoughtful about what is practical because the marine application itself, as you would appreciate, and everyone who's even seen a boat in their life, boats are moving around. You go from one port to another port, you have to go from one part of the world to another part of the world. And being able to use the same fuel would require significant infrastructure globally. Otherwise it would limit the owner or operator's ability to work only in certain regions. So that's one aspect of it.

00:17:22 KC Yost
Right.

00:17:22 Aditya Grover
And then the second aspect of it is ultimately we need a fuel that is easy to handle because we don't want risk. Right. I mean, ammonia has its own hazard and risk. LNG has its own hazards and risk, including, you know, volume, density and many other, you know, physical challenges as well.

00:17:41 KC Yost
Well, right, absolutely.

00:17:42 Aditya Grover
To be fair, to be fair, LNG has been around for 25 years, but our adoption in marine has been other than the very big, big, big container vessels. The adoption has been very small.

00:17:54 KC Yost
Correct.

00:17:54 Aditya Grover
And that's largely due to the challenges we face in the adoption and execution.

00:18:00 KC Yost
Okay. Right.

00:18:03 Aditya Grover
So as far as Caterpillar is concerned, I would say, you know, I think we have narrowed in on methanol. Methanol is a lower carbon emitting fuel. It's a fuel that is probably available in more than 100 bunkering ports as of today. I'm sure all the listeners of this podcast would say, is it gray Methanol green methanol, is it blue? And we can get into that argument. But ultimately the first step is to move to a lower carbon fuel and then of course, source and supply chain. That's another challenge. But that is probably not in the hands of the owner and operators. That's in the fuel industry itself. And as you might be aware, aviation is making changes. You know, roads, cars on the roads, they are making changes. A lot of different industries are driving this change, which will hopefully benefit marine applications as well. But it's a production, but it's a.

00:19:03 KC Yost
Chicken the egg type scenario. Right. You're not going to build facilities to deliver the fuel to the port for the cargo ship unless the cargo, unless you have enough demand from cargo ships to use that fuel. And the cargo ships aren't going to make that conversion to use that fuel unless there are enough docks available or ports, harbors to provide that fuel to keep that ship going. Right. So it's a chicken and egg type situation, similar to, I think, electrification of the cars here in the United States and finding regeneration stations around the country. Right?

00:19:45 Aditya Grover
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So which is why I said that's why I kind of my rephrase myself earlier. You know, fully agree, KC. It's not really step. Right. It's just pathways. And where are we in these pathways? Sure. How much progress are we making and how soon can we make those and gain the benefits of it? And to your point, 100% agree. But what some of the, you know, the larger cargo owners or ship owners are doing is they are partnering with the fuel suppliers and saying, you know, we want to make a difference, we commit to so much fuel demand in the future, help us in this journey. So I think it's all about collaboration. It's all about partnerships in the industry and working with each other to problem solve and ultimately reach to net zero.

00:20:33 KC Yost
Well, and that's, and that's the key and that's how you get past. In my mind, the chicken and the egg scenario is through collaboration and with the owners, working with the fuel suppliers, it makes that process go a lot faster and a lot smoother. So makes perfect sense to me. Makes perfect sense to me.

00:20:53 Aditya Grover
I'll just touch on the last aspect, which is electrication, which I probably didn't touch upon. I think electrification is an easy one. We all use it in our homes, in power plants, industry, everywhere. Right. It's easily available, it can be stored. We have a lot of the grids maybe, albeit not the ones we need always. But electrification is everywhere.

00:21:20 KC Yost
Right.

00:21:21 Aditya Grover
So we are focusing a lot initially in Caterpillar Marine on hybrid solutions and working with our customers to understand, based on the operational profile, what do you really need? Because everybody does not need a hybrid or everyone does not need an electric vessel because it doesn't work. Right. So the answer is not just to get a Tesla in the marine application. The answer is to understand how you operate, what are you doing and does this really add up in comparison to an alternate, which is internal combustion engine, or do you need to go the middle ground, which is hybrid, which is maybe a best of both worlds. So we work closely with our customers to really understand what is it that will help them in the electrification.

00:22:09 KC Yost
At the end of the day, it has to make economic sense to the end user, right?

00:22:16 Aditya Grover
Absolutely. I mean, without that we are not going anywhere.

00:22:19 KC Yost
That's right. That's right. Hey, so a phrase that's been kicking around and I want you to explain, it's called round trip energy efficiency. What does that mean? Round trip energy efficiency.

00:22:37 Aditya Grover
Thank you again. You know, I mean, it's. I'll try to explain it as simply as I can for all the listeners. The round trip efficiency of any energy storage system is really the ratio of total energy output of the system to the total energy input into the system.

00:22:56 KC Yost
Okay.

00:22:56 Aditya Grover
And anyone who went to physics class in, you know, grade four or five or six probably understands this or even physics.

00:23:04 KC Yost
Even when you take a physics class like me back in the 60s. Still the same. Go ahead.

00:23:09 Aditya Grover
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty much the same. Right. And the fundamentals the same. Right. A high value means that the losses occurred are low. So ultimately we want less loss in the system. Right. That's our ultimate load. We want 100%. We are never going to get there.

00:23:26 KC Yost
Right.

00:23:27 Aditya Grover
But if we can get to 80, 85, 90, whatever it is, we are in a good place. Right. And just for your awareness, we are seeing in some of the new pilot projects for fully electric vessels, the round trip efficiencies are varying from as low as 60% to as high as 85%. Now, this depends on a lot of factors, right? A lot of technical factors such as the type of battery. Right. What is the chemical structure of the battery? What is the charging method? Is it AC or dc? And then the existing charging infrastructure, what kind of charging? Kilowatt hours current ampere is going into it. So there's a lot of factors to it. And you know, like I said earlier a little bit maybe that the answer is not just to have an electric vessel. The answer is you need to look at the full system that you can provide to that vessel and does it make financial impact, economic and environmental sense for everybody.

00:24:27 KC Yost
Got it, got it, got it. So is electrification of vessels particularly appealing to the industry?

00:24:41 Aditya Grover
Again, you know, I think you're asking me a lot of tough questions, but I think the answer is yes and no.

00:24:48 KC Yost
Okay.

00:24:48 Aditya Grover
And. And I'll say yes and no.

00:24:51 KC Yost
So there are upsides and downsides. Right.

00:24:55 Aditya Grover
Like always.

00:24:56 KC Yost
Sure. So go ahead and go through that for me, would you? Would you please?

00:24:59 Aditya Grover
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, of course, as I said, electricity is available now. Right. In the world. Even in most developing countries or underdeveloped countries. A lot of investment has gone through the last 25 years where we see electricity available. So let's start at that. Which is a blessing. Right, Right. Then when I come to electrifications, and I think I touched upon it a little bit earlier, was that a lot depends on the operating profile of the vessel.

00:25:31 KC Yost
Correct.

00:25:32 Aditya Grover
What are you really doing? Are you doing A to B and B to A, so just, you know, back and forth runs, or are you going to be doing different types of work and then you're going to work in one country for one year and then you're going to move to another country for another year? Or do you need to be offshore for long periods, maybe 60 days in a row? So all these factors need to be considered because that will determine how many times you need to come back to shore to charge, number one. Or do you have offshore charging in the. In the farm or the facility or in the field, wherever you're working? Currently, oil and gas assets don't have many. Just for awareness. Correct. A lot of the energy players are thinking of setting it up, but as you know, building infrastructure offshore is not a piece of cake. It takes time, money, and a lot of investment. So all these factors need to be considered before we can say a fully electric vessel is a solution. Yes. It can be more efficient, it can be less on emissions, it can reduce maintenance, it can reduce noise, it can reduce operating costs because lower fuel, it can improve emissions. But then you need a significant amount of infrastructure for it to be. For all these benefits to be really absorbed in the system.

00:26:58 KC Yost
Perfect sense. Yep. Okay. All right.

00:27:03 Aditya Grover
So I would say, I mean, this is kind of my. I think you have to dive into really the application of the vessel and what do you expect this vessel to do and then have an understanding of the infrastructure and whether. Does this really add up or is there a middle ground? Maybe initially a hybrid or a hybrid with an alternate fuel before you come to a fully electric vessel. Because in 10, 20 years, when you want to replace this vessel in the next new building cycle, a lot of the infrastructure might get built and that will enable you to then go fully electric. So like you said earlier, it's a little bit of chicken and egg, but ultimately you need some infrastructure, otherwise it does get hard.

00:27:49 KC Yost
And the source of recharging, as you mentioned, is critical. I would also think that the weight of the batter becomes rather critical. The, the concern here in the States, we've, we've seen a couple of situations where electric vehicles have gotten wet and with salt water, and there have been some, some pretty big messes from, from the battery being exposed to salt water and that type of thing. So I suspect all of that rolls into that. And that's a, a subpart of the total analysis, right?

00:28:31 Aditya Grover
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, safety is number one sure, for us at Caterpillar, but also, you know, at marine. Right. And if you look at the Solas book, you know, safety of life at sea. Right. It's number one priority. Ultimately, you go on any vessel, there is a crew of 10 to 20 people that are in the middle of the ocean and working. So safety is super paramount in everything we do in our propulsion solutions, in our battery system and alternate fuel, which is why some of the alternate fuels do not really stack up because the safety risk and the hazards are quite high. And therefore a lot of the alternate fuel options that are viable on land are not so viable in marine applications.

00:29:14 KC Yost
So great, great point. Great point. Worst thing that can happen offshore is to be on a vessel that's on fire. Safety is the number one concern. I totally get that. Now you mentioned alternative fuels and earlier you mentioned methanol. So can you talk about this alternative fuel aspect of trying to reduce emissions?

00:29:40 Aditya Grover
Right, yeah. So, I mean, I'm not sure how much you're aware, KC, but you know, methanol as a fuel has been around in the marine industry for many years. Right. For 10, 20, 30 years. I don't have an exact timeline, but it's been around.

00:29:58 KC Yost
I don't remember. Yeah, I don't remember it 50 years ago, but fair enough. Yeah, go ahead.

00:30:03 Aditya Grover
It's been used in offshore applications, it's used on rigs, it's being transported on supply vessels in tanks. So crew is familiar with it, Handling procedures are known, safety procedures are known, and of course, it's a lower carbon emission fuel. So I think it's, like I said earlier, a little bit of availability, technical Crew awareness, low factor on the safety and risk side, all these multitude of factors put it up high on the stacking order of an alternate fuel for marine applications.

00:30:43 KC Yost
Got it.

00:30:44 Aditya Grover
And I want to be very specific to my audience here. Marine applications, not for everything else in the world. And of course, as I said, ultimately everything is about economics. Right?

00:30:56 KC Yost
Sure.

00:30:56 Aditya Grover
Methanol today is already available in 100 plus ports around the world. Not always green. But I think that transition is already happening, I would say. And more importantly, the cost of last mile of delivery. Right. If I am the energy company or the charter, whether it's the private ones, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, or the state owned ones like Petrobras, Adnoc, Aramco, whoever it is, they are looking at the cost of their cost to deliver this fuel to the rig as well as the vessels.

00:31:34 KC Yost
Right. So.

00:31:35 Aditya Grover
And if there is already significant infrastructure in place, I think it will encourage all these players in the industry to make that small step forward in at least partly decarbonizing the industry, even if it doesn't take us to net zero, which is why I see it in two big steps. One, maybe like a partial decarbonization which will reduce by 20 to 40%. And then the next big wave where we have developed technology as well as infrastructure to go net zero by 2050.

00:32:09 KC Yost
So we're back to collaboration again, being a driver in development of this alternative fuel, right?

00:32:20 Aditya Grover
Absolutely.

00:32:21 KC Yost
Just like we talked about earlier.

00:32:24 Aditya Grover
Absolutely. Absolutely.

00:32:25 KC Yost
Okay.

00:32:26 Aditya Grover
I mean this is, this is not a marine problem. This is our planet's problem right now. And all stakeholders, everyone needs to come, you know, organizations, lawmakers, policymakers, everyone, banking institutions, financial institutions, everyone need to work to incentivize stakeholders to make the right decisions and the right steps to move this forward.

00:32:52 KC Yost
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. I've enjoyed the heck out of this conversation. I really appreciate your time, but we are running out of time. So, you know, let me, let me just end with this. Can you talk about any trends that are going to be considered for energy transition in marine segments in the future that, that we haven't talked about so far?

00:33:17 Aditya Grover
I mean, I would say, you know, in the short term, as I've touched upon, you know, alternate fuels, electrification, and then there is this, you know, big concept out there which is hydrogen. Right. Everybody wants hydrogen to become a reality. Obviously it has no carbon molecules, so we will not have any carbon emissions. And that is going to be very beneficial for all of us. Right. And of course, hydrogen, depending on the format, hydrogen cells, the ability to Convert. These are all a lot of significant challenges for the marine industry.

00:33:52 KC Yost
Yeah. If you don't, if you don't mind me injecting as well, just like you mentioned, with the methanol, green, blue. Hydrogen has green and blue and brown and gray and all sorts of different colors depending on how it's manufactured. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt, but go ahead.

00:34:10 Aditya Grover
No, absolutely, that's right. And you know, the thing is, hydrogen is well on its way, not in marine but in other applications, land based applications.

00:34:21 KC Yost
Sure.

00:34:22 Aditya Grover
So it's becoming a reality. There are some technological hurdles which need to be overcome in terms of how do we manage space health, risk, density, size, what is going to happen.

00:34:36 KC Yost
Right.

00:34:37 Aditya Grover
But we have a Caterpillar itself at a group level. We are already way into hydrogen burning engines and running pilot projects with our customers to see how we can use hydrogen in different formats as a fuel. And so is the rest of the world because ultimately it has, like I said, no carbon and therefore a very viable option for our future on the planet.

00:35:03 KC Yost
Cool, cool. Anything you want to say to kind of tie all of this up in a bow or anything, anything I haven't covered that you might want to throw in there?

00:35:16 Aditya Grover
Firstly, I've enjoyed all the questions, so thank you for that. KC, amazing questions, some tough ones. I hope I've done my best to address the audience and yourself. I would like to just summarize it as the following thing. Right. I mean I would say the marine segment is very diversified, very complex. However, what we need to do is take that first step, right? We are not going to get to net zero in the next five years. However, we need to make small steps of improvement basis our environment bases, our infrastructure and our availability. And let's work with each other as a, as an industry, whether it's OEMs, energy companies, owners, operators, ports, terminals, whoever it is, let's get our heads together, problem solve and help us get to that Net zero goal that has been set through the policymakers. Thank you.

00:36:11 KC Yost
What a. What a beautiful bow. To wrap up this conversation with. Great, great words, great words. So Aditya, thanks so much very much for taking the time to visit with us today. If anyone would like to learn more about all of the developments at Caterpillar Marine, you can find them on the web at cat.com/marine thanks to all of you for this episode. For joining this episode of the Energy Pipeline podcast sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and Gas. If you have any questions, comments or ideas for podcast topics, feel free to email me at kc.yost@oggn.com. I also want to thank everyone at the Oil and Gas Global Network for making this podcast possible. Find out more about other oggn podcasts at oggn.com. This is KC Yost saying goodbye for now. Have a great week and keep that energy flowing through the pipeline.

00:37:06 Speaker 4
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