MEYER Group: Into the future with new business areas

In 2023, MEYER WERFT in Papenburg once again delivered two innovative cruise ships to international customers. In July and December 2022, the two newbuilds Silver Nova was 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. With technical optimisations in many areas, the ship is fully focused on energy efficiency and is therefore an important development step towards sustainability in the cruise industry. "The entire MEYER team has done 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. Once again, we have proven that we are excellent at responding to customer wishes. On the Silver Nova, we have once again integrated new technologies on the way to green cruising," says Managing Director Jan Meyer.

Further innovative large-scale projects will be realised over 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 MEYER WERFT’s building docks. In November 2023, MEYER WERFT secured an important order in the new offshore business segment: The Papenburg shipyard will supply steel sections with a volume of almost 6,000 tonnes of steel each for converter platforms for the DolWin4 and BorWin4 connections and around 15,500 tonnes 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.

Only shortly before, the MEYER Group and the Belgian company Smulders had announced their entry into the construction of offshore converter platforms at the Warnemünde site. Initially, both companies intend to establish NEPTUN SMULDERS Engineering, which will be responsible for the development and construction of converter platforms with a capacity of two gigawatts. In a first step, 100 jobs will be created there.

The other new business areas MEYER RE and MEYER Floating Solutions also continued to develop in 2023. While MEYER RE received its first refit orders from the cruise industry, MEYER Floating Solutions presented the world’s first floating cruise terminals. The MEYER Group’s IT start-up, ALFRED Maritime, used artificial intelligence to efficiently control energy generation and utilisation on board the Silver Nova for the first time this year. "We now employ 1,700 people in the Group’s engineering division – almost twice as many as before the crisis. This shows impressively how consistently we are working on our future viability and continuing to drive forward the topics of sustainability and innovation," continues Jan Meyer.

At the end of November, the Finnish sister shipyard MEYER TURKU delivered the Icon of the Seas to the Royal Caribbean Group, the largest and most complex cruise ship in the world, which once again sets new standards for the industry with a multitude of technical and touristic innovations. For example, the Aqua Dome on board the ship is the largest glass structure at sea. 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 the Central Park with 31,000 real plants that form their own ecosystem. Overall, the Icon of the Seas achieves an unprecedented level of energy efficiency that can only be realised on ships of this size.