With an increased focus on the maritime industry, Blue World Technologies, a leading developer and manufacturer of high-temperature PEM fuel cells, is strengthening its Board of Directors with the nomination of maritime heavyweight Sameer Kalra.

Sameer Kalra holds a position as President of the Marine Division and Executive Vice President at Alfa Laval in Sweden. His entire professional life has been dedicated to the maritime sector, where he, after 10 years at sea, went ashore and has since held different management positions first in Aalborg Industries and later following an acquisition continued as part of the management in Alfa Laval. Throughout his career, industrialisation has been a key element having contributed to bringing new maritime systems to the market.

Blue World is currently running the first demonstration project with methanol-based fuel cells for maritime power generation. With a fuel cost saving of 20-30% due to Blue World’s patented system architecture, we are enabling a cost-efficient use of green fuels like methanol. Additionally, the system provides an opportunity for up to 100% pure CO2 recovery for carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS). The company is initially targeting onboard power production in megawatt size before moving into large-scale propulsion systems for global shipping.

Sameer Kalra

“Having worked in the maritime space for four decades bringing several maritime systems to market, his experience in this field is second to none. We are therefore very excited having been able to make an agreement with Sameer on this nomination, which is backed by both the founders and all the key shareholders”, says Anders Korsgaard, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Blue World Technologies and continues: “The maritime industry is considered a hard-to-abate sector, but our fuel cell technology can truly make a difference, and Sameer is a strong profile to have onboard on our quest towards industrialising the technology”.

With a cell factory in Aalborg, Denmark, Blue World provides all the core fuel cell components for the systems and is looking into both scaling up the cell production as well as industrialising the fuel cell system for maritime usages.

“I am happy to be part of Blue World Technologies’ exciting journey and look forward to working together with the team to industrialise and scale its industry-leading fuel cell technology platform into the maritime space”, says Sameer Kalra, President Marine Division and Executive Vice President, Alfa Laval.

With backing from both the founder and the key shareholders it is expected that Sameer Kalra will enter the Blue World Board of Directors following an extraordinary general meeting in April.