Container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd has placed an order for eight new dual-fuel methanol container ships with Chinese shipyard CIMC Raffles, with deliveries scheduled for 2028 and 2029.

Each vessel will have a capacity of 4,500 TEU, with the total investment exceeding $500m. Hapag-Lloyd confirmed the contract on 12 December.

The newbuildings will be equipped with dual-fuel methanol engines and are expected to deliver efficiency improvements of up to 30% compared with older vessels of similar size. When operating on methanol, the ships are projected to reduce emissions by up to 350,000 tonnes of CO₂e per year, the company claims.

The order represents Hapag-Lloyd’s first newbuilding programme based on methanol propulsion. The carrier currently operates, or has on order, 37 dual-fuel LNG vessels that are also capable of running on biomethane.

In April 2024, the company agreed with Seaspan Corporation to convert five 10,100-TEU container ships to dual-fuel methanol operation, with retrofit work planned for 2026 and 2027. This was followed in November 2024 by a supply agreement with Chinese energy producer Goldwind for 250,000 tonnes of green methanol per year. The fuel, a blend of biomethanol and e-methanol, is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 70%, according to Hapag-Lloyd.

The company has also committed to chartering a further 14 newbuild container ships on a long-term basis. These include four vessels of 1,800 TEU, six of 3,500 TEU, and four of 4,500 TEU, with deliveries planned between 2027 and 2029. As previously announced in November 2025, the company is investing in a total of 22 vessels with capacities below 5,000 TEU.

"Continuously modernising our fleet is firmly anchored in our Strategy 2030. The new ships will help replace older tonnage, further decarbonise the Hapag-Lloyd fleet, and reduce our dependence on the charter market. What's more, operating these state-of-the-art ships will be much more cost-efficient," said Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd.

The company aims to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions from fleet operations by around one-third by 2030 compared with 2022 levels, with net zero fleet operations targeted for 2045.

Based in Hamburg, Germany, Hapag-Lloyd operates a fleet of 305 container ships with a total transport capacity of 2.5 million TEU.