Container Lines Are Hedging Their Bets on Alternative Fuels

Ocean Network Express (ONE) has marked the maiden voyage of ONE Solidarity, a methanol- and ammonia-ready container ship, with its first port call at Shekou, China. The vessel is part of ONE's S-series of dual-fuel-ready newbuilds, engineered for future conversion to methanol or ammonia propulsion once those fuels are more widely available, and will operate on ONE's Mediterranean Pacific South 2 service. It follows sister vessel ONE Singapore, deployed earlier in the same series.

Ready, Not Running

It is worth being precise about what "methanol- and ammonia-ready" means here: ONE Solidarity is not burning either fuel today. It is a conventionally-fuelled vessel built with the structural and systems flexibility to be converted later, a hedging strategy container lines are increasingly using to avoid betting a whole fleet on one alternative fuel before a clear winner, if there is one, emerges.

Why Build Optionality Rather Than Commit

Methanol and ammonia sit at different points on the maturity curve: methanol-fuelled vessels are already sailing globally with an established, if still limited, bunkering network, while ammonia propulsion remains earlier stage, with safety and bunkering infrastructure still being worked out. Building a vessel that can flex into either lets a carrier defer that bet until infrastructure and fuel availability are clearer, at some cost in efficiency compared to a vessel purpose-built for a single fuel.

The Broader Pattern

ONE Solidarity is one newbuild in a wider trend: major container lines are increasingly ordering dual-fuel-ready or dual-fuel-capable tonnage rather than committing fleets to a single alternative fuel pathway. That reflects genuine uncertainty across the industry over which fuel, or combination of fuels, will end up dominant for deep-sea shipping, and it pushes some of that uncertainty downstream onto ports and fuel suppliers, who need to build out bunkering capability for multiple fuels in parallel rather than one.

Source: Ship & Bunker, 2 July 2026.