The dual-fuel newbuild wave: ammonia finds its natural home on gas carriers

The alternative-fuel orderbook has run hot then cooled. Per DNV’s Alternative Fuels Insight platform, 2024 was a record year: 515 alternative-fuelled vessels ordered — up 38% year on year — of which 264 were LNG dual-fuel, 166 methanol and 27 ammonia. In 2025 the pace fell sharply, with orders down by roughly half over the first eleven months, even as LNG held around two-thirds of what was ordered and methanol’s share slipped from 32% to about 20%. The signal is not retreat from decarbonisation but a market re-weighting toward the fuel with the most bunkering and engine maturity.

Ammonia is the quieter story, and it is advancing fastest where it makes most sense: the gas-carrier segment, where the fuel is often already the cargo. Lloyd’s Register approved the design of Trafigura’s four 45,000 m³ medium gas carriers, powered by WinGD ammonia dual-fuel engines with Alfa Laval’s Ammonia Release Mitigation System, at HD Hyundai Mipo for delivery from 2028. Vessels that already carry LPG and ammonia can bunker the same molecule they transport, sidestepping much of the infrastructure gap that slows ammonia elsewhere.

For owners the calculus is unforgiving: a fuel decision at contract signing locks in emissions economics and residual value for a 20-to-25-year hull, against uncertain future fuel prices, evolving regulation and engine technology still proving itself in service. That is why 2025’s slowdown reads less as loss of nerve than as buyers waiting for clearer signals — while the gas-carrier ammonia projects quietly de-risk the pathway for everyone watching.

Apeks view — Whichever fuel wins, the newbuild will spend its life proving what it burned and what it emitted — to charterers, to the EU ETS and FuelEU, to class. The vessels ordered today are being designed for a world where operational and emissions evidence is continuously demanded; capturing that evidence reliably is becoming as much a design requirement as the engine itself.