Maersk to add up to 60 dual-fuel ships, announces turn to bio-LNG

News 7 Aug 2024 by Jasmina Ovcina Mandra

Maersk has announced a massive fleet renewal plan, including a turn to bio-LNG as it hedges its bets on multiple fuel options.

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Liner major Maersk is returning to shipyards with plans to sign newbuilding orders and time-charter contracts, aiming to secure a total dual-fuel capacity of 800,000 TEU, with deliveries expected between 2026 and 2030.

The move continues the 2021 fleet renewal plan, with the company targeting a renewal pace of about 160,000 TEU per year.

Maersk said that the orders will reach a total of 50-60 combining both owned and chartered dual-fuel vessels of different sizes “offering great network optionality”. Under the plan, approximately 300,000 TEU will be owned capacity while the remaining 500,000 TEU is planned through time-charter agreements.

Speaking on the fleet renewal during today’s conference call on Q2 and H1 results, Vincent Clerc, CEO of Maersk, said the ordering has been batched due to clogged-up delivery times at yards, therefore the company needs to place multiple years of orders at once. However, the delivery is expected to be spread out evenly across the upcoming period.

“Most of these ships are already ordered, or will be in the coming weeks,” Clerc said.

Maersk hedges its bets with bio-LNG addition

Maersk revealed that the dual-fuel ships will be a mix of methanol and liquified gas dual-fuel propulsion systems, with an intention to run the gas-powered ships on liquified bio-methane (bio-LNG). In addition, Maersk said it was working to secure offtake agreements for bio-LNG to ensure that the new dual-fuel gas vessels provide greenhouse gas emissions reductions in this decade.

Once the vessels have been delivered, around 25% of the Maersk fleet will be equipped with dual-fuel engines.

The announcement comes on the back of recent market reports that linked Maersk to an order of up to 22 LNG-fuelled containerships. Maersk has been a vocal opponent of LNG as a marine fuel due to its methane emissions and has vowed to order only dual-fuel vessels, predominantly opting for methanol as its fuel of choice. This decision has practically kick-started a trend in container shipping, with numerous liner majors, including ONE, COSCO, and CMA CGM, following suit with methanol-fuelled orders. Maersk has 25 owned dual-fuel methanol vessels; 5 in service and 20 on order providing around 350,000 TEU of dual-fuel capacity.

Commenting on the bio-LNG move, which surprised the market, Clerc explained that the decision was made to mitigate risks due to the uncertainty surrounding the availability and prices of green fuels, as well as the evolving regulatory landscape.

“Therefore, to reach our decarbonisation agenda in an economically competitive way, there was a necessity for us to hedge some of the bets that we are making on technology and not to take only one way and depend on assumptions that we have very little influence on. This was an opportunity for us to balance the bets,” he added.

“These orders will not add to the overall capacity and over time every vessel coming in will be replacing a scrapped vessel having reached end of life, ensuring that we maintain our fleet size at around 4.3 million TEU. By diversifying our fleet and fuel options, we gain the flexibility, knowledge, and experience to cater to a future with multiple fuel paths. We thank our partners for working with us to move the industry further towards enabling a future with decarbonised ocean transport,” said Ahmed Hassan, Head of Asset Strategy & Strategic Partnerships at Maersk.

Maersk expects its CAPEX to be between US$ 10-11b for 2024-2025 (previously US$ 9- 10b) due to continuous fleet renewal. At the end of Q2, Maersk’s fleet comprised 707 container vessels, including 304 owned and 403 chartered ships, totalling 4.3 million TEU.