Szczecin Shipyard

The Szczecin Shipyard, New Szczecin Shipyard since 2002, Polish Shipyard Szczecińska Nowa (SSN ), was a shipyard in Szczecin in Poland. The counted among the largest European shipyards company is in liquidation in May 2009.

History

After the Second World War came to Szczecin Poland. The traditional Szczecin shipyards had been largely destroyed by bombing. After the consolidation of the remaining shipyards Szczecin shipyard ( Shipyard Szczecińska ) was founded in 1948 on the former grounds of the Szczecin Oderwerke and Vulcanwerft a state enterprise. In April 1948 with the Oliwa was the first new building of the Polish shipbuilding industry from the stack. The construction of the following ship, the Colliers Czulym, was begun in 1951. From 1951 to 1990, the shipyard was named after the Polish labor leader Adolf Warski. Since the "Odra- Helling " was only designed for the construction of relatively small ships, 1957, the " Vulcan Helling " with two slipways was built, the first ship ran from the 1959.

In the following decades, mostly ships for the Soviet Union, but also for Germany, the UK and Norway were built. After the political changes of the early 1990s, the company ran because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the removal of government subsidies in a serious crisis. By specializing in medium- large container ships of 3000 to 4000 TEU and 50,000 DWT chemical tanker to the shipyard could be consolidated. The workforce was reduced from 11,000 to 7,000 employees. The yard, the mid-1992 still had 116 million U.S. dollars in debt, was the end of the year as debt-free.

Built in 1994 "Odra Nowa " Helling was designed for the construction of up to 40 meters wide ship hulls. In 2000, the slipway " Wulkan II" was modernized, expanded and equipped with a 72 meter high crane with 450 tonnes deadweight. Thus, the construction of ships up to 256 meters in length and 100,000 deadweight tons was made possible.

In terms of the contract value of 1.6 billion U.S. dollars was the Szczecin Shipyard in 1996 to fifth in the world rankings behind the largest South Korean and Japanese shipbuilding company. The shipyard Stettin was a prime example of successful management. Around 1999, the number of contracts for the construction of new vessels declined worldwide. There were plummeting prices and an unfavorable exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and zloty. When it was announced in November 2001 that a penalty for late delivery of a chemical tanker was repaid by current loans, the banks stopped making payments to the shipyard. The insolvency in March led to the halt in production and in July 2002 to bankruptcy.

The company was acquired by the State Industrial Development Agency and continued production under the name Shipyard Szczecińska Nowa continues. Within 48 months sales of $ 1.1 billion was achieved with the construction of 30 ships. Attempts to privatize the yard or restructure independent of state aid failed. Since the Polish government under Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński 's failure to request an extension of shipbuilding subsidies in the EU, the EU Commission, the state payments to the Polish shipyards in 2008 declared to be illegal. The government in Warsaw was asked to retrieve the aid illegally paid to the shipyards in Szczecin, Gdynia and Gdansk. The assets of the Szczecin shipyard, which last had about 4500 employees, since for sale. The continued operation of shipbuilding is not required by the prospective buyer.