Damen Shiprepair & Conversion (DSC) has acquired fellow Dutch shiprepairer D. van de Wetering, which claims to be one of the oldest ship repairers in Europe with a history going back to 1880.
DSC said today that it had closed the D. van de Wetering yard in Rotterdam’s Eemhaven on 5 October and would be transferring all activities there to its Damen Shiprepair Van Brink facility in nearby Pernis.
It declined to give details of the circumstances that led to the takeover but told IHS Maritime that the operation would give it an important new capacity to carry out voyage and harbour repairs at an international level.
It said that D. van de Wetering, which specialises in providing above-waterline repairs to seagoing vessels throughout Europe on a 24/7 basis, had about 50 people on its payroll but was unable to say how many of them would be joining the Damen group.
“It has always been our strategy to be able to repair ships anytime anywhere in the world and even work on ships while in transit,” DSC Group director Durk-Jan Nederlof said of the takeover. “This acquisition accelerates our ambitions in this field.”
Damen Services director Jaap de Lange said that D. van de Wetering’s engineers would add to the group’s existing pool of 70 field services engineers operating worldwide.
“They can strengthen our service support in the field of warranty, technical assistance, maintenance, expeditionary repairs, and refits,” he said.
DSC, part of the wider Damen shipyard group, operates 15 repair and conversion yards in northwest Europe, the Middle East, Singapore, and South Africa.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.