China Merchants Puts Methanol Into the VLCC Wheelhouse as 'New Explorer' Enters Commercial Service

The world's first methanol dual-fuel very large crude carrier has left the newbuild berth and started earning. China Merchants Energy Shipping took delivery of the New Explorer from Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co, part of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, on 22 December, and the vessel is now in commercial service on a crude trade rotation. The milestone turns a long-running engineering argument into an operational one: whether methanol can carry the weight of the crude tanker sector's decarbonisation pathway.

The propulsion package is built around a MAN B&W 7G80ME-LGIM engine — the first dual-fuel methanol main engine ordered for the VLCC segment, as reported by Riviera Maritime Media and Seatrade Maritime. That engine choice matters. VLCCs have historically been the hardest crude tanker class to decarbonise because of their fuel volumes and long-haul duty cycles. Sizing a methanol bunker system for a 300,000-dwt hull without eating into cargo parcels was the specific puzzle CMES asked Dalian to solve, and the New Explorer is the answer the yard delivered.

CMES is not stopping with one ship. Baird Maritime and Maritime Executive place the company's current order book at 15 tankers, including five owned VLCCs, three long-term chartered VLCCs and seven owned Aframaxes, with deliveries staged through 2026 to 2028. The composition matters as much as the volume: the owner is building a mixed methanol-conventional fleet so it can benchmark fuel economics, emissions compliance outcomes and charterer appetite in parallel. That is a much stronger data set than any single-ship trial.

The broader market is moving in the same direction. Splash247 and Marine Insight cite roughly 97 methanol-fuelled vessels in service today, with 366 more on order for delivery by 2030 — a pipeline that has grown steadily despite competing interest in LNG, ammonia and biofuel blends. The economics still hinge on green methanol supply, bunkering coverage at the top 20 refuelling ports, and whether IMO's mid-term measures reward methanol dual-fuel on a lifecycle basis. All three of those variables sit outside any individual owner's control, which is why operational performance data from ships like the New Explorer will have outsized influence.

What this means for operators: the New Explorer moves methanol VLCCs from concept slide to voyage report. Tanker owners without a dual-fuel plan should expect charterers — particularly oil majors with Scope 3 commitments — to start asking harder questions on newbuild specifications and retrofit readiness. Yards outside China that want a share of the next VLCC ordering wave will need to show they can deliver the same bunker-integration work at comparable commercial terms. And bunker suppliers in the major VLCC staging ports should read the CMES fleet mix as a signal that methanol demand curves are about to steepen, not flatten.