Nordjysk shipyard wins largest order to date

The scrap yard Modern American Recycling Services Europe (MARS) has won the task to dismantle and recover a large floating production facility - a so-called FPSO vessel of 390 meters - that has been working in Brazil for Shell.

“Shell is one of the big names on the market, so this is a step up the ladder. It is a blue stamp for MARS Europe and an entrance to the worldwide market," assesses CEO Kim Thygesen, MARS Europe in Frederikshavn to the local media, Kanal Frederikshavn.

The huge vessel, the Fluminense FPSO, which was commissioned in 2003 in oil fields east of Rio de Janeiro, is expected to arrive in Frederikshavn in 2024, once the necessary approvals have been obtained.

MARS is headquartered in the USA, but it does not surprise the director in Frederikshavn that the vessel must be scrapped in Denmark anyway.

“MARS in the USA does not have room for such large ships. There are few shipyards in the world that can take ships of this size. And Shell wants a yard that does things right. We do. We have gradually built up a brand as the yard that does it best when we talk about environmental regulations and safety," says Kim Thygesen to the media.

The company does not put figures on the size of the order, but it is the largest so far in the company's history, and it means that MARS has filled up its order book for the next three years and can thus secure employment for the 220 employees at the North Jutland shipyard.

MARS was established in Frederikshavn in 2019, where, with a 290,000 m2 recycling area, it was the world's first tailor-made recycling facility built for the recycling of ships and platforms

The first major task for the yard was the recovery of the two platforms Tyra East and Tyra West from the Danish fields in the North Sea.