Project Nexus-V is a feasibility-stage maritime innovation concept designed to convert underused VLCC ballast return voyages into a dual-value platform for empty-container repositioning and volatile organic compound (VOC) energy recovery. The commercial opportunity arises from a structural inefficiency in global trade: Europe and North America often accumulate surplus empty containers, while Asian manufacturing hubs require equipment for export cycles. By assessing whether a purpose-built overhead deck structure can safely carry standard or foldable empty containers on return voyages, the project targets reduced port-yard congestion, lower repositioning cost, improved asset utilisation, and a stronger environmental proposition for tanker operators, ports, and logistics partners. The technical case is deliberately conservative. The first operating envelope is limited to empty containers, with foldable units treated as a high-potential variant because they may multiply repositioned volume within the same structural footprint. Key feasibility questions include load-path design, deck clearance, vessel stability, windage, visibility, fire protection, hazardous-area separation, terminal handling, class approval, insurance treatment, and turnaround impact. The work also considers whether a thermally steadier carriage environment could reduce condensation, corrosion, fatigue exposure, and maintenance uncertainty for container hardware and supporting steelwork. Alongside the container workstream, Nexus-V evaluates onboard VOC harvesting from crude cargo operations. Captured vapours could be condensed, stored, and used as an auxiliary fuel or energy input, reducing venting, improving emissions performance, and creating a secondary cost-saving mechanism. This gives the concept an investor-relevant value stack: congestion relief, avoided repositioning cost, fuel substitution, lower emissions exposure, potential regulatory goodwill, and improved long-term vessel utility. The recommended next step is a route-specific feasibility study comparing current practice with standard-empty and foldable-empty container scenarios, while modelling VOC recovery yield, safety controls, port time, capital cost, stakeholder approval, and payback sensitivity. If these assessments support the technical and commercial case, a limited pilot on a repeatable corridor could test whether VLCC return voyages can deliver a practical, lower-emission contribution to container repositioning and tanker energy efficiency.
Michael Biswell (Sun,) studied this question.