Danaos Corporation Orders Four Methanol-Ready Boxships

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Tuesday April 12, 2022

Shipping firm Danaos Corporation has ordered four new boxships suitable to be converted to methanol propulsion. 

The four methanol-ready 7,200 TEU ships will be built by Daehan Shipbuilding in South Korea for delivery in the first half of 2024, Danaos said in a statement on its website on Monday. The methanol-ready notation signifies that the ships are of an appropriate design for retrofit to methanol propulsion at a later date, and usually refers specifically to enough space being left for the larger fuel tanks needed for lower-density fuels.

"The current world developments are pointing out to significantly elevated fuel prices in the future and bearing in mind the uncertainty of green fuel availability we are following a strategy of investing into the most fuel-efficient vessels together with scrubbers that will minimize the fuel cost while maintaining the option to modify the vessels into green methanol use when the fuel will be available," John Coustas, CEO of Danaos, said in the statement.

"This strategy removes the risk of technical obsolescence while it delivers short and medium term benefits on the fuel cost front."