MEYER Group: Into the future with new business areas
The MEYER Group, with its three shipyards and a total of around 7,200 employees, used the year 2023 to prepare itself organizationally for the future to expand the product portfolio. The Meyer Group, with its three shipyards and a total of around 7,200 employees, is currently in the process of change and significant organizational adjustments, including an expansion of its own product portfolio.
In 2023, MEYER WERFT in Papenburg once again delivered two innovative cruise ships to international customers. In July and December 2022, the two new buildings Silver Nova were handed over to Silversea Cruises and Carnival Jubilee to Carnival Cruise Line. The Silver Nova is the first cruise ship in the world to open up new architectural possibilities with asymmetrical deck layouts. The ship relies fully on energy efficiency with technical optimizations in many areas and is therefore an important development step towards sustainability in cruising. “The entire MEYER team did a great job this year: we delivered the Carnival Jubilee on time despite supply chain problems. We managed to complete this ship at short notice for another Carnival brand. We have once again proven that we can respond excellently to customer requests. On the Silver Nova we have once again integrated new technologies on the way to green cruising,” says Managing Director Jan Meyer.
Further large-scale innovative projects will be implemented in the next few years. With the Disney Treasure (Disney Cruise Line), Silver Ray (Silversea Cruises) and ASUKA III (NYK Cruises), three more cruise ships are currently under construction in the building docks at MEYER WERFT. In November 2023, MEYER WERFT secured an important order in the new offshore business area: The Papenburg shipyard is supplying steel sections with a volume of almost 6,000 tons of steel each for converter platforms for the DolWin4 and BorWin4 connections and around 15,500 tons of steel each for BalWin1/BalWin2. This total steel volume is roughly equivalent to that of a large cruise ship. Delivery of the components is planned for the period from autumn 2024 to spring 2027.
Just recently, the MEYER Group, together with the Belgian company Smulders, had announced that it would begin building offshore converter platforms at the Warnemünde site. Initially, both companies intend to found NEPTUN SMULDERS Engineering, which will take over the development and construction of converter platforms with two gigawatts of power. In the first step, 100 jobs will be created there.
The other new business areas MEYER RE and MEYER Floating Solutions also developed further in 2023. While MEYER RE received the first refit orders from the cruise industry, MEYER Floating Solutions presented the world's first floating cruise terminals. This year, the MEYER Group's IT start-up, ALFRED Maritime, used artificial intelligence for the first time to efficiently control energy production and use on board the Silver Nova. “We now employ 1,700 people in the group’s engineering department – almost twice as many as before the crisis. This impressively shows how consistently we are working on our future viability and continuing to advance the topics of sustainability and innovation,” Jan Meyer continued.
At the end of November, the Finnish sister shipyard MEYER TURKU delivered the Icon of the Seas, the largest and most complex cruise ship in the world, which once again sets standards for the industry with a variety of technical and tourism innovations, to the Royal Caribbean Group. For example, the Aqua Dome, the largest glass structure at sea, is installed on board the ship. The largest water park at sea is also on board the Icon of the Seas, whose water is heated highly efficiently using waste heat. Another highlight of the ship is Central Park with 31,000 real plants that form their own ecosystem. Overall, the Icon of the Seas achieves a level of energy efficiency that has never been achieved before and can only be achieved with ships of this size.
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