Meyer Werft creates Neptun Offshore to manage $2.8bn converter push

Meyer Werft is setting up a dedicated offshore business to handle a converter platform orderbook worth roughly €2.5bn ($2.8bn), marking a structural shift for the struggling German shipbuilding group beyond its core cruise ship market.

The new company, Neptun Offshore, will consolidate the group's offshore converter activities under one roof, Meyer Werft announced. It will also hold the group's 50% stake in Neptun Smulders Offshore Renewables (NSORe), the joint venture with Belgian steel construction specialist Smulders.

That joint venture carries the commercial weight. Earlier this year, NSORe secured two major offshore converter contracts from German transmission system operator 50Hertz for the LanWin3 and LanWin6 grid connection projects in the North Sea.

What are the contracts worth?

The JV's share of the two contracts runs to approximately €2.5bn, or $2.8bn at current rates. A substantial share of the work will land in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, including at Neptun Werft's facilities in Rostock.

Both projects involve 2GW offshore converter platforms. Their job is to transmit electricity generated by North Sea wind farms into the German power grid — heavy, high-specification steel structures with long engineering lead times, not unlike hull construction in industrial scale.

Meyer Werft estimates the two existing contracts could create up to 1,000 direct and indirect jobs in the region. That figure matters for a group that has spent the past two years fighting for its own survival amid losses, state support talks and restructuring at its Papenburg yards.

Why split the business out?

Meyer Werft said the decision to establish a separate company reflects the different technical, regulatory and financial requirements of converter platform construction compared with conventional shipbuilding. Converter platforms answer to grid regulation and energy-sector financing logic, not to cruise line customers.

The carve-out puts clear distance between the two lines. Neptun Offshore will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Meyer Werft, headed by Malte Poelmann, who already serves as managing director of NSORe alongside Dieter Weyns.

The group aims to have the new structure in place ahead of construction of the first converter platform in 2028. That gives the subsidiary roughly three years to build out its organisation, supply chain and Rostock capacity before steel is cut.

What does it mean for the market?

For European offshore wind supply chains, the move adds industrial capacity at a moment when transmission infrastructure is the bottleneck. Germany's grid expansion programme depends on converters like LanWin3 and LanWin6 to move North Sea wind power south, and TSOs have struggled to find yards willing and able to build the platforms.

For Meyer Werft, the $2.8bn orderbook provides revenue visibility that cruise newbuilds alone cannot currently guarantee. It also deepens the group's exposure to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as a production base, spreading work beyond Papenburg.

The structure keeps Smulders in place as a JV partner, preserving the Belgian fabricator's steel construction expertise while Meyer Werft takes direct ownership of the offshore growth story through Neptun Offshore.

With first platform construction set for 2028 and up to 1,000 regional jobs tied to the existing contracts alone, Neptun Offshore gives Meyer Werft a second industrial leg — provided the North Sea grid build-out stays on schedule.