Thai shipping company RCL has ordered four container vessels from China State Shipbuilding Corporation subsidiary Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding, taking its reported newbuilding programme to 22 vessels.
The programme has been valued at about US$1.45 billion and includes 16 feeder ships to be built by Huangpu Wenchong.
RCL signed the latest contract with Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding and China Shipbuilding Trading on Thursday, September 24. Each of the four ships will have a capacity of 3,100 TEUs.
The new quartet joins eight 4,488TEU ships and four 1,900TEU ships in the 16-unit feeder vessel programme. RCL and the yard signed the contract for the 1,900-TEU quartet on August 21.
RCL placed orders for four more ships in April 2025: two 11,000TEU vessels and two 4,400TEU vessels, with a combined contract value of about US$369.4 million.
As Baird Maritime reported at the time, the 11,000TEU pair is expected in 2027 and the 4,400-TEU pair in 2028. Those four ships and two other vessels ordered from a South Korean builder account for the six ships outside the 16-vessel Huangpu Wenchong programme.
Huangpu Wenchong listed a length of 199.99 metres and a beam of 35.2 metres for each of the new 3,100TEU ships. They will have a speed of 18.5 knots and a range of 15,000 nautical miles.
The yard said the design will provide substantial refrigerated-container capacity. It also described the ships as having low fuel consumption and meeting IMO Tier III standards for NOx emissions.