Russian contract ends German yard stalemate

No official statement was issued after the signing in Wismar Wednesday 28 May

of a contract selling the former P+S Group shipyard to Nordic Yards as of 1 June.

No price was mentioned officially either but a reliable source indicated to The Motorship that reports Nordic had paid €5 million for Volkswerft and would pay €1.5 million more when it turned a profit were correct.

Vitaly Yusufov, owner of Nordic in Wismar and Warnemuende, said after signing the contract with Volkswerft Receiver Berthold Brinkmann that 250 people would be guaranteed jobs until the end of the year. Brinkmann said three quarters of them would come from the current work force in Stralsund and that 250 further jobs would be created by the end of 2016.

He added 21 months of negotiations since bankruptcy with various interested parties had paid off and that shipbuilding in Stralsund was now on the mend again. Among late potential buyers, it emerged recently, was Swiss crane builder Liebherr.

Nordic has already pledged to invest heavily in Volkswerft and has said it will initially be involved in offshore construction projects for its busy new owners. However Nordic has also already stressed it does not intend to abandon Volkswerft’s decades-long competence and experience in traditional shipbuilding.

The sale of an intact Volkswerft, much welcomed by local supporters of the yard, means Nordic now owns three shipyards equally spaced along the German Baltic coast.

A fourth German shipyard, J.J. Sietas in Hamburg is also now owned by Russians. It was sold in February this year to local firm Terraline, a subsidiary of Russia’s Pella Shipyards and renamed Pella Sietas and will build smaller, but sophisticated vessels like tugs and icebreakers for at least eight years.