Yang Ming Signs for Six 13,650 TEU Dual-Fuel Boxships at Hanwha Ocean
Type B LNG tanks at 1.0 bar design pressure, ammonia-ready, with wind shields and pre-swirl stators
Yang Ming Marine Transport has signed a newbuilding contract with Hanwha Ocean for six 13,000 TEU class LNG dual-fuel container vessels, scheduled for delivery from 2028 to 2029.
Each vessel will have a capacity of up to 13,650 TEU and will be built with LNG dual-fuel propulsion to an ammonia fuel ready specification. The ships will carry Type B LNG fuel tanks with a design pressure of 1.0 bar, chosen to improve the safety and efficiency of LNG operations, together with a set of energy-saving technologies including wind shields, rudder bulbs, pre-swirl stators and shore power systems. Smart ship technologies and cybersecurity protection features are also to be incorporated.
The vessels are intended to complement the carrier's existing fleet of large ultra-large container ships and to serve as core capacity on its main east-west liner routes, connecting Asia with the East and West Coasts of North America, South America and the Mediterranean. Amid ongoing global supply chain restructuring and market uncertainty, Yang Ming said, it remains committed to the steady development of its core container shipping business while keeping pace with industry advancements.
The order sits inside a larger renewal plan whose deliveries began earlier this year. By 2030 a total of 24 new vessels are expected to enter service, comprising 18 LNG dual-fuel ships made up of five 15,500 TEU, seven 16,000 TEU and the six 13,000 TEU vessels under this contract, supplemented by six 8,000 TEU methanol dual-fuel-ready ships.
The specification is worth reading closely because it hedges. A Type B tank at low design pressure is the arrangement that suits long deepsea legs where boil-off management matters more than tank compactness, while the ammonia-ready notation buys optionality on a fuel that has no bunkering network yet. Ordering six ships on LNG with an ammonia conversion path, alongside six more that are methanol-ready, spreads the fuel bet across three pathways rather than committing to one.
The size band is also a deliberate choice. At 13,650 TEU the ships are large enough for mainline east-west service but small enough for the string flexibility that has mattered through two years of rerouting, and they fit terminals that the largest container ship classes cannot always work. With the global fleet about to pass 34m TEU, as set out in the fleet milestone, the marginal question for a mid-sized carrier is less about capacity than about which ships in the existing fleet the new ones displace.
