Odense Steel Shipyard

Odense Steel Shipyard () was a Danish shipyard company located in Odense. It was best known for building container ships for its parent group, A.P. Moller – Maersk Group, including the Mærsk E class in 2006 which at the time were the biggest container ships in the world. The 2008 financial crisis led to Maersk announcing its closure in 2009 and the last new ship was delivered in January 2012.

Company history

The first yard was opened in 1918–1919 by the A.P. Møller company. A new yard with bigger and better facilities was constructed 1957–1959 on a new site located in Munkebo a few kilometres outside Odense proper. Odense Steel Shipyard was the largest yard within the Odense Steel Shipyard Group, which also consisted of two yards and an engineering company, all situated in the Baltic. The yard was known for designing and building innovative vessels that applied the newest technology in design and equipment.

Since 1996 the Yard built some of the world's largest container ships; including the Mærsk E-class with a nominal capacity of 15,550 TEU (originally declared as 11,000 TEU), the highest equivalent number of any vessel as of today.Holt, Julie
Ebba Mærsk beats world record
''Ing.dk'', 28 May 2010. Retrieved 13 June 2010. However, Maersk chose Daewoo to build its latest and largest design, the Triple E class with a nominal capacity of 18,000 TEU, as the Asian shipyard was more competitive.

The original shipyard remained in operation until 1966, when all operations were transferred to the new site. Unlike the modern shipyard, the old yard produced civilian and merchant vessels only. Its first completed ship was cargo steamship ''Robert Mærsk'', completed in 1920. Its last production was Yard No. 177, the bulk carrier ''Laura Mærsk''.

The new Odense Steel Shipyard (the "Lindø" Yard)

The new shipyard originally had two building docks, No. I and II (300 × 45 × 7.5 metres each), allowing the construction of tankers of up to . The yard was enlarged in 1967 to include a new very large building dock, No. III (415 × 90 metres), and an 800-ton, 95-metre tall, 148.5-metre span gantry crane, allowing the construction of tankers in the VLCC and ULCC class. The largest construction planned on the yard was two tankers, but this order was later cancelled. From the 1960s until 1977, the yard only constructed oil tankers (no larger than ) as well as bulk carriers. The first RO-RO ship was built in 1979, and the first container ship in 1980. In December 1992, the yard completed the world's first 300,000 DWT double-hull tanker. In January 1996 they delivered its first Post-Panamax container ship. On 3 December 1999 the gantry crane collapsed after a hurricane in the building dock and damaged the ship No.170 ''Cornelius Mærsk'', which was repaired thereafter and delivered two months later. MAN Takraf of Leipzig, Germany, delivered a new 1,000 ton, 110-metre tall gantry crane in April 2001.

The collapse in world shipping during the Great Recession led Maersk to announce in January 2009 that Odense would concentrate on smaller ships but in May 2009 they announced that they would be closing the yard altogether and putting Baltija Shipbuilding Yard in Lithuania up for sale. The last newbuild from Lindø was No.714 '' Niels Juel'', a frigate for the Royal Danish Navy, which was delivered in January 2012.

After yard closure

After the closure of the yard in 2012, the site has been transformed to an industrial park housing a large number of companies within the offshore sector; the Lindoe Offshore Renewables Centre. Most companies work with production, storage and discharge of large components for offshore and heavy industries. The area of more than , of which is under roof, combined with the gantry crane and the harbour area makes it ideal for handling heavy industry.

In 2016 elements of the yard Odense Maritime Technology (OMT) were proposing the s for the Procurement programme of the Royal Australian Navy's frigates, but built in Australia.

List of ships built at Lindø

References

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Buildings and structures in Odense
Shipbuilding companies of Denmark
Maersk
Container ships
Manufacturing companies established in 1917
Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2010
Danish companies established in 1917
2010 disestablishments in Denmark