Germany’s Lloyd Werft faces closure or sale

LWB spokesman Marco Graudenz told The Motorship the closure of the yard, one of Germany’s oldest shipbuilding facilities going back to 1857, had been announced at works meetings held because of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. “And, yes the Rönner Group is interested in buying”, he added.

He gave no further details, but reports elsewhere said Rönner, which has shipbuilding, steel construction and service interests, had already held initial talks on a purchase of LWB.

Graudenz said LWB management was continuing to talk internally with the yard’s workforce, the Works Council and also the IG Metall (IGM) – the trade union which represents many of the yard’s 350 employees.

Reports elsewhere quoted IGM head Doreen Arnold as describing the LWB closure as “not just a shock but a kick in the stomach”. Local politicians also reacted with dismay. However a spokesman for local mayor Melf Granmtz said one ray of hope was that Berlin had already indicated it would help the east German MV Werften – of which LWB is nominally a part – to secure jobs and restructure and that hopefully LWB would also benefit.

However it is already known that 1,200 of the some 3000 jobs at the three east German yards of MV Werften are likely to go because of Coronavirus.

LWB has been owned by Hongkong-based Genting since 2016 when the new owners saw LWB as the hub for a Genting cruise ship newbuilding programme spearheaded by 208,000gt Global Class and 88,000gt Universal Class newbuildings.

But in a surprise about-turn Genting reversed the Bremerhaven hub plan and instead bought east German yards in Wismar, Stralsund and Rostock-Warnemünde and created MV Werften to build its cruise ships.

The reversal caused consternation and disappointment in Bremerhaven, turning multi-million Euro city plans for port expansion upside down and leaving LWB without orders it had turned away to concentrate on newbuilding development.

Construction at MV Werften has been halted since the Coronavirus situation shut down production there last year. At LWB, some cruise ship refurbishment has been carried out for Genting, but generally the yard has returned to specialised, high-value conversion and refurbishment as well as repair and, latterly, also to luxury yacht building as orders have reportedly fallen off.

Marco Graudenz said construction of a private 140m luxury yacht was “as good as completed” and that the ship would be delivered after sea-trials.

He also revealed that the yard would overhaul another giant gate from the nearby Kaiserschleuse lock – repeating a similar project on another gate last year. Finally, Graudenz said the117.9m German Polar research icebreaker Polarstern of 12,600gt would dock after mid-year. A regular visitor, Polarstern’s latest scheduled refit would be “comprehensive and last several months”, Graudenz told The Motorship.