COSCO Shipping Holdings has signed up for another 18 containerships worth RMB20.27bn ($2.99bn), taking its newbuilding commitments in the segment this year to 48 vessels and around $8bn. The latest package is split between 12 LNG dual-fuel megamaxes at CSSC’s Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding and six wide-beam feeder ships at fellow CSSC yard Huangpu Wenchong. The larger ships are described by COSCO as 22,000 teu units, while Waigaoqiao puts their nominal capacity at 21,700 teu, and they are priced at $224m each, giving the 12-ship programme a value of $2.688bn. The six 3,200 teu feeder ships, based on a wide-beam design aimed at regional and feeder trades, will cost RMB339.8m ($50m) apiece, or RMB2.039bn ($300m) in total, with the two contracts together adding 283,200 teu of nominal capacity.
The orders cap a remarkable year of contracting for China’s largest liner group. Three rounds of orders in 2026 have taken COSCO Shipping Holdings’ containership tally to 48 vessels representing around 676,800 teu and RMB54.27bn ($8bn) of investment, of which 36 ships with almost 640,000 teu of capacity are LNG dual-fuel vessels. The latest spending pushes COSCO considerably further into LNG propulsion; the Jiangnan series ordered earlier this year marked the group’s first move into LNG-fuelled containership newbuildings after it had previously concentrated on methanol and conventional propulsion designs.
Source: Splash247
