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Business Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
Singapore startup BeeX takes the sting out of maritime inspection costs with underwater drones
[SINGAPORE] Being a small fish in a big pond is paying off for BeeX, as the startup's underwater drones prove cheaper and greener than their larger competitors. The company designs, builds and operates submarine drones – also known as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) – that provide maritime inspection services. Named after the Malay term for anchovies, its drone cuts the cost and time of underwater inspections by as much as 50 per cent and slashes emissions by up to 95 per cent compared to larger remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs). The fundamental 'innovation dilemma' with AUVs, said BeeX co-founder and CEO Grace Chia, is that they 'disrupt the profits of the best-performing subsea companies'. Large subsea companies 'can charge their customers millions to use vessels with ROVs', she said. With simpler AUVs, companies cannot charge such high rates – and thus do not have an incentive to develop them. After the success of its first drone, BeeX is developing an AUV that is larger and therefore can perform a wider range of inspection jobs – while still retaining an edge over ROVs. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 8.30 am SGSME Get updates on Singapore's SME community, along with profiles, news and tips. Sign Up Sign Up Sea change BeeX has its origins in Bumblebee, a National University of Singapore (NUS) autonomous robotics club that Chia started as a student in 2012. There, she met schoolmate Goh Eng Wei, who would later become the company's co-founder and chief technical officer. In 2013, Chia and Goh's team won the Best New Entry award in RoboSub, an international student AUV competition in San Diego, US. The next year, she graduated and started working for a Singapore-based company that specialised in conventional maritime inspections – where she realised the role that AUVs could play. Maritime inspections involve examining structures that are on or under water, which can include oil rigs, offshore wind and solar farms, ship hulls, foundations or construction piles. Chia realised that while AUVs cannot do repairs or additions, they can perform inspection jobs faster and cheaper than ROVs. 'ROVs can do anything and everything, but need a lot of resources,' said Chia. 'You need to have big ships and well-trained personnel.' ROVs are tethered to a mothership, where human pilots operate them. These motherships are purpose-built and tend to be large, as they need to provide piloting facilities, power and communications to the ROVs. 'If you want the cost of subsea inspection and data collection to drop, the only way is if you drop all these other things – but it goes against the business model of the conventional incumbents.' That is where a startup could come in. Chia and Goh founded BeeX in 2018 with their own money and initial funding from the NUS Graduate Research Innovation Programme. Bee agile BeeX's autonomous underwater drone, uses numerous sensors including sonar to map its environment in two and three dimensions in real time. PHOTO: DERRYN WONG, BT In 2020, BeeX got a boost when it won first prize in Port Innovation Ecosystem Reimagined at Block71's (Pier71) Smart Port Challenge for the application of AUVs to maritime inspections. Pier71 is a joint startup incubator and accelerator by NUS Enterprise and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore. The win helped the company gain exposure to maritime corporates and investors, said Chia. 'Being plugged into the ecosystem enabled us to explore new opportunities for growth. We gained attention from diving companies who were more open to using robots to support their work.' After receiving Enterprise Singapore's Startup SG Tech grant of S$500,000 in 2019, BeeX began developing in 2020, with the drone's first operations in 2023. While ROVs can be as large as a minivan and weigh more than 3 tonnes, is less than a metre long and weighs 70 kg. It has various sensors, including a camera, sonar, lasers and an electromagnetic probe that detects the thickness of materials. Without the need for a tether or pilot, it can be launched from a wide range of smaller vessels or from the infrastructure it is inspecting. also reduces manpower costs. There is no need for a specialised mothership, and training a drone supervisor takes just six months, compared to five to seven years for an ROV pilot. Furthermore, the drone can navigate more quickly than an ROV, as it uses sonar and other sensors to 'see' beyond human sight. Unlike ROVs, performance is not dependent on pilot skill. 'With real-time sensors, the drone knows exactly where it is at all times, while the computer calculates the exact path to take. On average, an AUV can be 50 per cent faster than human-controlled flight,' said Chia. 'Our 'brain' is more intelligent and tested across more locations compared to ROVs, and our system is a lot more scalable,' she added, referring to the drones' autonomous navigation and surveying capabilities. BeeX's drones will get smarter as more data is gathered. 'Our core advantage is that we have 14 years of underwater data to help our vehicles to learn.' Sink to swim The drone inspecting a pile at sea. PHOTO: BEEX BeeX has now grown to a team of 28 people. It last raised funds in a bridging round in 2023, with S$2 million from investors co-led by Earth Venture Capital and ShipsFocus Ventures. 'We're currently in pre-Series A, so we are building the groundwork for scaling,' said Chia. The company has served 20 clients so far this year, up from 11 in all of 2024, in locations ranging from Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan to the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. With its operating model established, BeeX will expand its fleet – doubling from four drones to eight by year-end – and develop a bigger drone that can operate in more challenging environments. Clients who adopted are demanding more, said Chia. 'Now they start to ask us: 'Can your vehicle work for longer? Can it go deeper?' So that gave birth to the second variant, Betta.' Betta is 1.5 m long and weighs 300 kg – much heavier than but still smaller than most ROVs. Scheduled to begin operations later this year, Betta can work longer and deal with harsher weather and higher currents than its predecessor. Its development is supported by the Enterprise Singapore-Innovate UK grant, which was awarded in 2023 to a consortium formed by BeeX, offshore survey services contractor Sulmara and the University of Strathclyde. Without Betta's development costs, BeeX would be profit-making, said Chia. But to go further in the AUV field, developing a more capable model was essential, she said. 'I think it's important to invest in development to ensure that the company has an up-sized chance of success in the long-term future.'
Business Times
09-07-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Singapore start-up aims to halve the price of sustainable marine fuel
[SINGAPORE] Through their own startup, two scientists are tackling a major challenge in the maritime industry's green push: the high cost and low supply of sustainable methanol. In 2022, Lim Kang Hui and Haw Kok Giap – both then researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) – founded CRecTech, short for 'carbon recycle technologies'. The core offering: a unique catalyst technology that reduces the costs and emissions involved in making certain chemicals. CRecTech is currently applying this to methanol production. 'The problem now is actually the limited supply of green methanol,' said Dr Lim, the startup's chief executive. 'This is why we're trying to focus on that – providing that affordable green methanol solution.' Added Dr Haw, who is chief operating officer (COO) and chief technology officer (CTO): 'We expect that compared to conventional biomethanol production, we can achieve up to 50 per cent cost reduction in capital expenditure and operational expenditure.' The pair received initial funding from the NUS Graduate Research Innovation Programme and Enterprise Singapore's Startup SG Founder Grant. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 8.30 am SGSME Get updates on Singapore's SME community, along with profiles, news and tips. Sign Up Sign Up CRecTech has since grown to five people and is now in the pre-seed stage. Last year, it received US$500,000 funding as part of the Breakthrough Energy Fellows – Southeast Asia programme, backed by Temasek, Enterprise Singapore and Bill Gates' climate organisation Breakthrough Energy. Charting a new course The startup's catalyst technology was developed over the past decade by Dr Haw, who has a PhD in chemistry and left NUS to run the startup full time. The technology is now patented. Said Dr Lim: 'The process is known in the literature, but the specific details of our process is our trade secret.' Initially, CRecTech wanted to use this catalyst to make hydrogen production greener, by reducing the energy and carbon footprint of 'steam reforming' – the most common production method. But this proved unpopular with venture capitalists, said Dr Lim. 'Venture capitalists said they are looking to invest in new, emerging technologies – they are not looking for improvements in existing ones.' The startup thus pivoted to sustainable maritime methanol, which is more novel. In 2023, it pitched its catalyst technology for biomethanol production in the Port Innovation Ecosystem Reimagined at Block71's (Pier71) Smart Port Challenge – and won second place, cementing its shift towards the maritime sector. Pier71 is a joint startup incubator and accelerator by NUS Enterprise and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore. Green but costly An example of CRecTech's proprietary catalyst technology. PHOTO: DERRYN WONG, BT Green methanol is one of the alternative fuels expected to replace petroleum-based ship fuel. Methanol made from fossil fuels is readily available, but not sustainable. Green methanol – made from non-fossil fuel sources – can cut emissions of carbon dioxide by up to 95 per cent and nitrogen oxide by 80 per cent, while eliminating sulphur oxide and particulate matter. However, green methanol is two to five times more expensive than normal methanol. According to research firm Bloomberg NEF, low-carbon methanol made up less than 1 per cent of global methanol production in 2024. Furthermore, the maritime industry's demand for green methanol remains extremely low, as not many ships can use it. But Dr Lim expects this demand to increase in the coming years, as regulations prompt shipping companies to cut emissions. He noted that Europe now penalises shipping emissions through its Emissions Trading System scheme, while the International Maritime Organization is adopting stricter emissions targets. The global green methanol market was around US$2 billion in 2024 and is expected to increase to US$37 billion by 2034 with a compound annual growth rate of 34 per cent, according to Precedence Research, while an increasing number of new ships are being built that can use alternative fuels – including methanol. Making it cheaper There are two forms of green methanol: biomethanol that is made from organic sources and e-methanol that is synthesised from hydrogen and carbon dioxide, with electricity used to obtain the hydrogen. E-methanol is more expensive to produce, costing around US$800 per tonne compared to around US$400 for biomethanol, based on CRecTech estimates. CRecTech's process slashes the production cost of biomethanol to US$200 per tonne, bringing it closer to the US$150 per tonne cost of conventional methanol production. This is achieved by making the process shorter and less energy-intensive. In normal biomethanol production, organic material ferments and produces biogas, a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide. This biogas is 'upgraded' to become synthesis gas – a mixture of hydrogen and carbon dioxide – and then 'conditioned' to achieve the correct ratio of each gas, before being used to make methanol. With CRecTech's catalyst, biogas can be converted to synthesis gas in the correct proportion and purity, skipping the upgrading and conditioning steps. The process also takes place at a lower temperature, saving energy. Towards the end of 2025, CRecTech will hold a funding round and expand its headcount in preparation for scaling up production. It aims to create a pilot system that can generate 30 tonnes of methanol a year, followed by a commercial-scale demonstration facility by 2028. The facility is likely to be located in Malaysia or Indonesia and use palm oil effluent – a waste byproduct of palm oil production – to create 5,000 to 10,000 tonnes of methanol a year. 'It will be a first-of-a-kind demonstration of our technology at a commercially relevant scale,' said Dr Lim. 'And once we can show that, what we'll do is scale and multiply the same system… in parallel to other biomass sites.' In the long term, the company may help to power more than just ships. While CRecTech is currently focused on supplying green methanol to the maritime sector, it will consider other opportunities in the future, said the founders. This is because methanol and synthesis gas have numerous industrial applications, such as the production of plastics, sustainable aviation fuel and various chemicals.
