Western Germany News

The German government made an offer to buy the insolvent MV Werften's Rostock shipyard for its navy, a defense ministry spokesperson said on Friday, in a move to top up capacities for repairing and servicing war ships.Germany, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has been scrambling to bring its military back in shape after decades of attrition following the Cold War.In a major policy shift, Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged in February to sharply increase defense spending, including an initial 100 billion euro ($106 billion) fund to fill gaps in weapons and other military equipment.The d

DNV GL, the world largest resource of independent energy experts, has assisted John Laing, a leading international originator, investor and manager of infrastructure projects, in its investment in the onshore wind farm Horath Wind Farm in Germany. DNV GL conducted technical due diligence on the new asset with a focus on verifying its estimated energy yield. The work follows on from a long collaboration between the two companies, including DNV GL’s due diligence support work for John Laing’s recent acquisition of the 89.1 MW Klettwitz Wind Farm, one of Germany’s largest onshore wind farms. The Horath Wind Farm is located in the Rhineland-Palatinate area of south-western Germany.

According to a weekly update from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an oversupply of European distillates is raising the amount of product being held in floating storage, and also causing changes to shipping routes to slow delivery to the continent. Europe is experiencing a relatively warm winter resulting in weaker demand, and also high refinery runs in Europe and increased imports have kept distillate inventories in the Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Antwerp (ARA) area far above normal.

German propulsion giant Schottel looks back at five decades of  controllable-pitch propeller (CPP) development. CPPs have been developed and produced on the Baltic coast of Germany since 1962 – initially in Rostock, and then in Wismar from 1964. The first units were manufactured for 86 freezer-trawlers of type Tropik for the Soviet Union. Four additional types were produced for GDR fishery vessels. The first years of controllable-pitch propeller production in Wismar centered on systems with a power rating of 1…

Controllable-pitch propellers have been developed and produced on the Baltic coast of Germany since 1962 – initially in Rostock, and then in Wismar from 1964. The first units were manufactured for 86 freezer-trawlers of type Tropik for the Soviet Union. Four further types were produced for GDR fishery vessels. The first years of controllable-pitch propeller production in Wismar centered on systems with a power rating of 1,930 kW for 199 freezer-trawlers of type Atlantik. A total of 230 controllable-pitch propeller systems were delivered up to the end of 1969.

More than 150 barges are anchored at or near locks in western Germany's river and canal systems hit by a lock workers strike, report Platts, citing the German waterway shipping lobby BDB and German shipping firm sources. The German waterway system has 435 locks, the lion's share in western Germany. The small number in eastern Germany have been excluded from the strikes because of massive recovery work from last month's catastrophic flooding there. The west German strikes, called by the country's service workers union Ver.di…

The Rhine river remained closed to barge traffic on Wednesday, but Cologne city officals said movements around the Cologne hub may be resumed in the evening. City officials in Cologne said the water level there currently stood near 849 cm, but was dropping by about one cm an hour. "It may be open (to barge traffic) tonight," a municipal official in charge of water issues said. The level must drop to 830 cm for slow or tug-assisted traffic to pass and to 620 cm for normal flows to resume. Heavy rains and seasonal snow melting lifted Rhine levels sharply late last week and the heavily-trafficked river threatened to flood several areas in western Germany over the weekend. German barge traders said they did not expect a full reopening of the river to traffic until the weekend.

Rickmers Antwerp, the sixth of nine new Superflex Heavy Multi-Purpose Container (MPC) vessels being built in China for Rickmers-Linie, the Hamburg-based global project liner and heavy lift specialist, was officially named in Antwerp, her name-sake city on 16 June 2003. The vessel, which is now operating within the company’s newly inaugurated Pearl String Service, was christened by Mrs Beb Van Mechelen, the wife of Mr Dirk Van Mechelen, the Flemish Minister for Finance and Budget, Innovation, the Media, Town and Country Planning. Bertram Rickmers and Jan Boje Steffens, CEO of Rickmers-Linie, met international business partners, officials and international journalists with a warm welcome to this event.