Container Shipping Leads Maritime Transition with Over 500 Alternative-Fueled Vessels on Order

The container shipping sector continues to outpace other maritime segments in the adoption of alternative fuels, according to the latest analysis from BIMCO.

As of August 2025, there are 534 container ships on order that will use alternative fuels upon delivery, representing 53% of all container ships on order and 77% of the TEU capacity.

“As of end August 2025, 534 container ships are on order which will be able to use alternative fuels upon delivery. These represent 53% of ships on order and 77% of the TEU,” says Niels Rasmussen, Chief Shipping Analyst at BIMCO.

The analysis reveals that the container shipping industry’s order book also includes 321 ships that will use conventional heavy fuel and another 155 vessels designed for future conversion to alternative fuels.

Alternative fuels have proven particularly popular for larger vessels in the container sector. For ships with capacity of 8,000 TEU or more, 81% of vessels and 85% of TEU capacity on order will use alternative fuels.

The container shipping industry stands in stark contrast to other maritime sectors, which have been slower to adopt cleaner fuel technologies. “Despite an increase in orders for alternatively-fuelled ships in recent years, the other three main shipping sectors still lag behind the container sector in this respect. In the bulker, crude tanker and product tanker sectors, alternatively-fuelled ships only make up only respectively 8%, 17% and 9% of the ships on order,” Rasmussen noted.

Industry analysts suggest this disparity may be linked to the structure of these markets. “There can be several reasons why the bulker and tanker sectors still order comparatively fewer alternatively-fuelled ships. However, it seems likely that the prevalence of smaller operators in those sectors may negatively impact orders, whereas the container sector is controlled by a few large companies,” explains the BIMCO report.

Among alternative fuels, LNG remains dominant, accounting for two-thirds of all alternatively-fuelled ships on order, while methanol-fuelled vessels represent 31% of the total. After methanol briefly led alternative fuel orders in 2023, LNG has since regained its leading position.

The shift highlights ongoing challenges in the maritime decarbonization journey. “The shift back towards LNG highlights a key concern when contracting alternatively-fuelled ships: availability of fuel. While the technology to build ships capable of low carbon operation is available, the availability of the fuel needed appears to be lagging behind,” the report states.

Looking ahead, BIMCO projects significant growth in the alternatively-fuelled container fleet. “Assuming that none of the alternatively-fuelled ships in operation are recycled, the container fleet in 2030 will include 837 alternatively-fuelled ships with 10.9 million TEU capacity once all the ships in the order book have been delivered. That could equal more than 25% of all the container capacity in operation by then,” says Rasmussen.

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