Grimaldi Takes Delivery of 13th Ammonia-Ready PCTC, the Grande Pacifico
Key Takeaways
- •Grande Pacifico is the largest pure car and truck carrier in Grimaldi's fleet at 9,800 CEU capacity and the first of five vessels ordered from China Merchants Heavy Industries Jiangsu.
- •The vessel's ammonia-ready notation means it has been engineered for a future retrofit to operate on ammonia fuel, though actual industry-wide conversions remain limited due to early-stage bunkering infrastructure and regulatory frameworks.
- •Advanced technologies including lithium batteries, solar panels, and shore power capability enable a 50% reduction in fuel consumption compared to previous-generation car carriers.
- •The ship will serve Grimaldi's Asia-Europe route from Taicang to Antwerp and Southampton, a trade lane experiencing strong demand as China has become the world's largest automobile exporter.
- •Grimaldi's ongoing fleet renewal aligns with the IMO's revised 2023 greenhouse gas reduction strategy, which targets net-zero emissions from international shipping by or around 2050.
Italian shipping firm Grimaldi Group has taken delivery of its 13th pure car and truck carrier (PCTC) designed for future conversion to ammonia propulsion.
The new vessel, named Grande Pacifico, has a capacity of 9,800 CEU (car equivalent units), making it the largest PCTC in Grimaldi's fleet, the company announced in a LinkedIn post on August 12, 2026.
Grande Pacifico is the first of five ships that Grimaldi has ordered from China Merchants Heavy Industries Jiangsu, a shipyard based in China. Its "ammonia-ready" notation means the vessel has been engineered from the outset to accommodate a future retrofit enabling it to run on ammonia as a marine fuel. The order also reflects the broader dominance of Chinese shipyards in constructing alternative-fuel-ready tonnage, which have captured the majority of global newbuild orders in this category in recent years.
A growing number of ships have been ordered and delivered with ammonia-ready or methanol-ready classifications in recent years, as shipowners seek to hedge against uncertainty over which alternative fuels will dominate the maritime energy transition. However, actual conversions of vessels to operate on these alternative fuels remain limited across the global fleet, as bunkering infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, and fuel supply chains for ammonia and methanol are still in early stages of development.
"Equipped with advanced technologies including mega lithium batteries, solar panels and shore power capability, the Grande Pacifico can reduce fuel consumption by 50% compared with previous-generation car carriers," Grimaldi said in its statement.
The vessel will make its maiden voyage from Taicang, China, to Antwerp, Belgium, and Southampton, UK, operating on Grimaldi's Asia-Europe service. The route links Chinese manufacturing hubs to major European vehicle-import ports at a time when China has become the world's largest exporter of automobiles, a shift that has driven strong demand for PCTC capacity on Asia-Europe trade lanes.
The Grimaldi Group, headquartered in Naples, operates a large fleet of RoRo and RoPax vessels serving routes across Europe, the Mediterranean, West Africa, and the Americas. The group has been progressively renewing its fleet with more fuel-efficient and lower-emission vessels as the shipping industry faces tightening environmental regulations under the International Maritime Organization's greenhouse gas reduction strategy, which in its 2023 revision set a target of reaching net-zero GHG emissions from international shipping by or around 2050.
