Methanol orders exceed LNG in October

There were 18 orders for large containerships that will be able to run on methanol, from A.P. Moller-Maersk, COSCO Shipping Lines and OOCL.

Maersk ordered six 17,000 teu container ships with dual-fuel methanol engines early in October and are due for delivery in 2025. The vessels will be built by Hyundai Heavy Industries and will replace existing capacity in the Maersk fleet. With the order, Maersk has in total ordered 19 vessels with dual-fuel engines able to operate on green methanol.

“Green methanol is the best scalable green fuel solution for this decade, and we are excited to see several other shipowners choosing this path. It adds further momentum to the rapid scaling of availability needed to bring down the premium on green methanol and accelerate the evolution of climate neutral shipping,” said Palle Laursen, Chief Fleet & Technical Officer at Maersk.

Benchmarked against conventional fuel capabilities, additional CAPEX for the methanol dual-fuel capability is in the range of 8-12%, which is an improvement compared to when Maersk ordered eight vessels with the same technology last year.

When all 19 vessels on order are deployed and have replaced older vessels, they will generate annual CO2 emissions savings of around 2.3 million tonnes.

COSCO Shipping Lines has ordered five 24,000 teu methanol-fuelled ships from Dalian COSCO-KHI Ship Engineering (DACKS) for delivery between February 2027 and June 2028, and COSCO subsidiary OOIL, carrier OOCL’s parent, has ordered seven 24,000 teu ships from Nantong COSCO-KHI Ship Engineering (NACKS) for delivery between 2026 and 2028.

There were eight orders for LNG fuelled newbuilds in October.