Matson’s New Aloha Class Ships Are a Big Step in the Right Direction
Matson, Inc. is pleased to announce that our U.S. subsidiary, Matson Navigation Company, has successfully signed a contract with Philly Shipyard for three new 3,600 TEU Aloha Class containerships for an aggregate price of approximately $1 billion. The first vessel will be delivered during the fourth quarter of 2026, with subsequent deliveries in 2027.
Two Aloha Class ships were successfully built by Philly Shipyard and put into service in 2018 and 2019. The new vessels will be the same as their sisterships and will be equipped with either diesel or eco-friendly LNG fuel. Plus, the ship will have some other modern design features including a fuel-efficient hull design and environmentally safe double hull fuel tanks and freshwater ballast systems. These designs make these ships perfect for both types of fuels.
The existing Aloha Class ships in the Matson fleet are some of the fastest and most efficient vessels in the company, say Pasquale Caracappa, President, and Bob Page, Vice President Operations. Now two new vessels will be built: one designed for our China-Long Beach Express service and another that will be a sister ship to our other Aloha Class vessels. These ships should help us reach our goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 while also providing additional capacity and speed benefitting both our Hawaii service as well as the China-Long Beach Express service.
The 854-foot Aloha Class vessels are the largest container ships ever built in the US and are designed to sail at speeds exceeding 23 knots to help Matson fulfill its commitment of delivering goods on time.
Philly Shipyard is the leading U.S. commercial shipyard, constructing vessels for Jones Act trade lanes coast-to-coast. RPX’s services for the shipyard include Business Process Analysis and improvement, Partnership Development, Strategy Alignment and Innovation Management. Matson first contracted Philly Shipyard in 2003 to build four modern containerships to serve in their domestic operation called Oceanic Container Line (OCL).
“It’s so great to hear from a past customer and have them choose us for their next project,” said Steinar Nerbovik, president and CEO of Philly Shipyard. “We’ve delivered six vessels to Matson, and will once again be ready to execute on this important project.”
The new Aloha Class ships will replace three vessels currently deployed in the China-Long Beach Express (CLX) and redeploy bigger, faster ships to that trade lane.
Matson plans to finance the new vessels from their cash in the Capital Construction Fund and from the company’s cash flows, as well as loans available through their unsecured revolving credit facility.
Matson set corporate goals to meet a 40% reduction in its “Scope 1” greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 and net-zero Scope 1 GHG emissions by 2050.