In the first quarter of this year, 61% of new ship orders can use alternative fuels, a record (48% without LNG carriers). Among them, 10% of ships can use both LNG fuel and ammonia fuel.

In terms of tonnage, 57% of orders (101 9.3 million gross tons) use LNG fuel; 3.4% of orders use methanol fuel (4 ships with 4.6 million gross tons); 0.6% of orders use ethane fuel (2 ships, 1.1 million gross tons); 0.7% of orders are driven by battery hybrid. In addition, 12% of the orders adopt the reserved design of ammonia fuel (26 ships with 2 million gross tons); 1.4% of orders adopt LNG reserved design (10 ships with 200000 gross tons); 0.1% of the orders adopt the reserved design of hydrogen fuel (three ships of 15000 gross tons). In the future, these ships can be modified to use relevant alternative fuels.

In 2021, 32.7% of the tonnage of new shipbuilding orders used alternative fuels (449), compared with 209 in 2020 and 46 in 2016.

The use of alternative fuels has been rising. In terms of tonnage, 4.5% of the existing fleet uses alternative fuels, 3.9% in 2021 and 2.2% in 2017; 37.8% of handheld orders use alternative fuels, 27.8% in 2021 and 11.8% in 2017. It is estimated that by the beginning of 2023, 5% of the global fleet will use alternative fuels.

In the hand-held orders, 33.3% of the tonnage will use LNG fuel (647), 2.3% LPG (88), and 3.2% other alternative fuels (about 200), including methanol (24), ethane (11), biofuel (5), hydrogen (6) and battery / hybrid propulsion (about 150).

There are more than 270 ships in the existing fleet, 94 of which can be modified with LNG power in the future, 74 orders can be modified with ammonia power and 9 orders can be modified with hydrogen power.

More than 4460 desulfurization towers have been installed in the existing fleet, accounting for 23.1%. At present, the modification project of desulfurization tower continues to decrease, from 120 sets in March 2020 to 20 sets in March 2022. In 2021, the installation volume of desulfurization tower in new shipbuilding increased slightly, and 249 new ship orders for the installation of desulfurization tower were added throughout the year, including 194 container ships. So far in 2022, orders for 14 new ships preparing to install desulfurization towers have been added. At present, the price difference between high and low sulfur oil has almost reached US $300 / ton, close to the previous high (US $330 / ton in January 2020). It is expected that by the beginning of 2023, the proportion of ships using desulfurization tower will increase slightly to 24%.

Energy saving technology (EST) has been used on more than 4900 ships, accounting for 22.4% of the fleet tonnage. These technologies include propeller duct, rudder ball, wind assisted rotor, bellows and air filtration system.

The proportion of environmentally friendly ships is increasing, accounting for 27.7% of the total tonnage of the existing fleet. It is expected that this proportion will rise to 30% by the beginning of 2023.

It is worth noting that the fuel cost of the shipping industry is expected to exceed $200 billion in 2022.