en.Wedoany.com Reported - Australia-based mining and green energy company Fortescue will lease a fleet of up to 12 Newcastlemax bulk carriers (210,000 deadweight tons) from Bocimar, the dry bulk shipping subsidiary of CMB.TECH, with up to three vessels expected to enter service by the end of 2026.

Under the agreement, the three vessels are currently under construction at Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding in China, equipped with WinGD ammonia dual-fuel engines. The remaining nine vessels will be ammonia-ready, capable of being retrofitted to operate on ammonia fuel in the future. Katie Charuga, Fortescue's Director of Integrated Operations, stated that the shipping industry needs concrete action, and green ammonia is one of the clearest pathways to reducing maritime carbon dioxide emissions; these vessels represent a tangible step toward that future, with the next challenge being to scale up the use of green ammonia. Alexander Saverys, CEO of CMB.TECH, noted that Fortescue and Bocimar have built a solid partnership over the past two decades, and this agreement marks an important step in demonstrating ammonia as a viable marine fuel, while sending a strong signal to the market that the shipping industry can achieve large-scale decarbonization.

To secure fuel supply, CMB.TECH signed an offtake agreement in December 2025 to purchase renewable ammonia produced by Energy China at its Songyuan project in Jilin Province, northeastern China. CMB.TECH also acquired a minority stake in Jiangsu ADF, one of China's largest ammonia supply chain companies and the country's first exporter of liquid ammonia in 2011. Phase I of the Songyuan project will produce 158,000 tons of renewable ammonia annually.

WinGD's X52DF-A-1.0 dual-fuel ammonia engine has achieved a series of milestones this year: in January, it successfully passed type approval and factory acceptance tests in South Korea, with these engines to be installed on dual-fuel LPG/ammonia carriers under construction by EXMAR; a second round of factory acceptance tests in China, where these dual-fuel engines will be installed on a 25,000-cubic-meter vessel, one of four LPG/ammonia carriers owned and operated by Tianjin Southwest Maritime; and a third round of factory acceptance tests, with these engines to be used for the 210,000-deadweight-ton Newcastlemax bulk carriers built in China for Bocimar and subsequently leased by Fortescue. WinGD has now secured orders for 40 X-DF-A engines for various vessel types.