COSCO Orders 18 More Boxships as 2026 Newbuilding Spend Reaches $8bn
Twelve LNG dual-fuel megamaxes at Shanghai Waigaoqiao and six wide-beam feeders at Huangpu Wenchong
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. They are priced at $224m each, giving the 12-ship programme a value of $2.688bn.
The six 3,200 teu ships will cost RMB339.8m ($50m) apiece, or RMB2.039bn ($300m) in total, and are based on a wide-beam design aimed at regional and feeder trades. Together, the two contracts add 283,200 teu of nominal capacity to an orderbook that already ranked among the largest in the liner sector.
The orders cap a remarkable year of contracting for China's largest liner group. It opened 2026 with 12 LNG dual-fuel 18,000 teu ships at Jiangnan Shipyard and six 3,000 teu conventional-fuel units at COSCO Zhoushan, a package worth about $2.7bn, then followed in April through Orient Overseas International with another 12 LNG dual-fuel ships of 13,600 teu worth $2.22bn.
The three rounds take the group's 2026 tally to 48 containerships representing around 676,800 teu and RMB54.27bn ($8bn) of investment. Of those, 36 ships with almost 640,000 teu of capacity are LNG dual-fuel vessels, a proportion that marks a decisive shift in how the group intends to power its fleet.
That shift is recent. The Jiangnan series at the start of the year was the group's first move into LNG-fuelled containership newbuildings, after several years in which its investment had concentrated on methanol and conventional propulsion. Eight months later, LNG dual-fuel accounts for three quarters of the ships and almost 95% of the capacity ordered in 2026.
The spending also lands at a point when the wider orderbook is already testing the market's ability to absorb tonnage, with deliveries from the current cycle arriving alongside capacity returning from longer routings.
