Damen to buy Keppel’s Verolme repair yard

The yard, which has been active in the Botlek area of Rotterdam since 1957, boasts three graving docks, a quay capacity of over 1,800m and approximately 250 employees. It will become Damen’s fourth repair yard close to Rotterdam – two in the port and others in Vissingen and Amsterdam – and gives Damen its largest dock in the country, at 90m x 405m.

Damen noted that the large dock would enable it to cater for larger vessels and that it intended to maintain current employment at the yard. The group added that the four yards would “cooperate to maximise the use of each other’s expertise, further developing synergy advantages and jointly market their capacity, with the objective to offer more efficient and competitive services”.

A notification of the proposed transaction was filed with the Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets on 10 April. The companies aim to close the transaction is by the end of the second quarter of 2017.