MEYER WERFT is laying the organizational and legal groundwork for the successful development of its offshore converter business. To this end, all activities in this new business segment of the Group will be consolidated into a separate company, NEPTUN Offshore GmbH & Co. KG, in the coming weeks. This company will also hold the 50-percent stake in the joint venture NEPTUN SMULDERS Offshore Renewables (NSORe), headquartered in Rostock.
With the contracts awarded this year by the grid operator 50Hertz for the construction of two converter platforms in the North Sea (LanWin3 and LanWin6), NSORe has successfully entered the promising converter business. The total contract value for NSORe’s share of the two facilities amounts to approximately 2.5 billion euros, a large portion of which will be used for production and services in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, not least at NEPTUN WERFT.
However, converter construction involves different technical and regulatory requirements than shipbuilding. These differences relate, for example, to the required materials, lead times, testing systems, and IT systems, as well as the financing structure.
NEPTUN Offshore GmbH & Co. KG will be a wholly owned subsidiary of MEYER WERFT GmbH. The CEO is Malte Poelmann, who, together with Dieter Weyns, is already a managing director of NSORe.
André Walter, CEO of MEYER WERFT GmbH: “We want to establish the best organizational structures for this new business segment by the time construction begins on the first converter platform in 2028. By founding a separate company, we will achieve clear structures and lines of responsibility and avoid inefficient processes and higher costs. This will also allow NEPTUN WERFT to continue focusing fully on its core business—the construction of river cruise ships and floating mechanical engineering modules—in the future.”
Malte Poelmann, CEO of NEPTUN Offshore GmbH & Co. KG: “We are now officially launching our new offshore converter business segment under corporate law, through which we aim to play a key role in Germany’s energy transition. At the same time, we are already working full steam ahead to build our teams, which will drive our planned growth starting in 2028.”
The new structure will have no impact whatsoever on the value added generated at the Rostock site through the expansion of the converter business. MEYER WERFT continues to expect that the first two orders from 50Hertz alone will create up to 1,000 new jobs in the region, both directly and indirectly.
