German private shipping company Asiatic Lloyd has once again chosen its preferred Chinese shipyard to order two container ships.
According to industry sources, Asiatic Lloyd has placed an order with Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (DSIC) for two 7,100 TEU container ships. Specific pricing and delivery dates have not yet been disclosed.
According to its official website, Asiatic Lloyd is a privately owned shipowner headquartered in Hamburg and Singapore, operating under the AL Group owned by the K.F. Bunnemann family. Shipowning constitutes the core business of the AL Group, which invests in ships not only through direct ownership but also via bilateral joint ventures, third-party investors, and publicly listed shipping companies.
Currently, the AL Group operates a diversified fleet of 45 modern merchant ships, including container ships, bulk carriers, product tankers, and car carriers, with 11 newbuilds under construction.
This marks the second container ship order recently announced by DSIC. Earlier, Greek media reported that French shipping giant CMA CGM had signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with DSIC for the construction of 6+4 22,000 TEU LNG dual-fuel container ships, with the total cost estimated at around $2 billion.
Recent container ship orders have once again confirmed that 2025 is poised to become another “bumper year” for the global container newbuilding market: in the first half of the year, the global new orders for container ships reached 2.3 million TEU, which is on the verge of surpassing the total annual order volume of 4.4 million TEU in 2024—a figure that previously ranked as the second-highest in history.
According to the weekly report released by the well-known ship broker MB Shipbrokers, container ship owners are actively contacting Chinese and Korean shipyards, and it is expected that several feeder ship and large container ship building intentions will be finalized in the near future.