Several brokers said the German owner had exercised an option from a 3+2 contract revealed in January this year.
Peter Dohle will reportedly pay between $121-$125 million per ship, and the 8,400-teu vessels are scheduled for delivery in 2027-2028.
According to Peter Dohle’s website, its fleet consists of 307 container vessels and 38 bulk carriers.
The containerships’ fleet ranges from small feeder vessels of around 300 teu up to ships of 14,000 teu capacity.
Containership owners are increasingly opting to power their vessels with LNG.
LNG Prime was the first to report that Taiwan’s Wan Hai Lines is working on switching an order placed in South Korea last year for eight methanol-powered containerships to LNG fuel.
Taiwan’s shipping firm Evergreen Marine recently also ordered ultra-large LNG-powered containerships at two yards in South Korea and China, including at GSI.
These moves followed a major shift by Maersk, who confirmed last year that it had ordered a fleet of LNG dual-fuel containerships with a capacity of 300,000 teu from yards in China and South Korea.
Orders for LNG-powered vessels jumped 103 percent to 264 ships last year, driven by the container and car carrier newbuild boom over the last three years, according to classification society DNV.
In 2024, 69 percent of all containership orders were for ships capable of being powered by alternative fuels, driven by cargo owners responding to consumer demands for more sustainable practices and liner companies preparing to replace older tonnage, DNV said.
