Andrea Lazzaro is business development lead at WinGD. Image Credit: WinGD

If engine orders placed with leading manufacturer WinGD are any indication, alternatively-fuelled vessels already on order are not being changed to conventionally-fuelled engines on the back of delays to global GHG regulations.

At the recent IBIA Annual Convention in Hong Kong it had been suggested by some that sluggish progress on global decarbonization efforts meant vessel owners were changing course on fuel choice for orders they had already placed. .

"When it comes to WinGD orders for methanol or ammonia engines, we have had no changes whatsoever. All our customers have remained firm on their original choice," Andrea Lazzaro, WinGD's business development lead, told Ship & Bunker.

"We have, up to today, 83 orders of dual-fuel methanol engines, and some of them have already been delivered, and with all of the ones which are in the pipeline to be delivered, there have been no changes.

"It's the same thing with ammonia; we have something like 30 ammonia engines, some being delivered this year, some to be delivered later, and again all the customers have been firm on their original choice."

For context, as of January 2026 there were a total of 308 methanol vessels on order.

In October the IMO opted to delay by one year a vote on its net-zero framework setting global GHG penalties and incentives for shipping, leading many to speculate this would slow the uptake of alternative marine fuels.

Indeed, recent analysis of bunker demand represented by recent vessel orders shows a heavy skew towards traditional oil bunkers. 

While orders for alternatively-fuelled bunkers may have slowed, WinGD says alongside faster growth in conventionally-fuelled ship orders it has observed an increase in methanol- and ammonia-ready ship orders.

Such vessels count as conventionally-fuelled ships until they are retrofitted.

"We have seen that the orders for large 2-stroke methanol and ammonia engines as a percentage of the total market have been trending downwards in the last year and a half, while orders for our conventional fuel (Diesel/HFO) engines have increased significantly in the same period" Lazzaro said.

"The reason is that a lot of our customers are ordering diesel engines which are ammonia or methanol ready for a future retrofit conversion, or they can also be LNG-ready."

Ship & Bunker's latest analysis or the global orderbook shows it currently represents 49.5 million MToE (metric tonnes of oil equivalent) of bunker demand, 56% of which is from oil-powered tonnage.

However, in the eight months leading into 2026 the global Orderbook record a net increase of 9 million MToE of bunker demand, with 7.5 million MToE (83%) of that tied to traditional oil fuels.