Aalborg Industries to axe 100 jobs

DENMARK: The international economic crisis has reduced the number of new ship contracts with more than 85% compared to last year, which now also get Aalborg Industries to respond to the anticipated reduction in boiler orders.

Aalborg Industries CEO Jan Vestergaard Olsen - Photo: Aalborg Industries

The Danish industrial leader Aalborg Industries has increased its market share, resulting in more than 50% of all ships built on the planet today are equipped with an Aalborg Industries boiler plant. But given the sharp slowdown in the shipbuilding industry the international group has desided to reduce staffing.

According to the company, this year until August only 156 ships (over 2,000 dwt) were ardered world wide. For comparison, last year 1434 ships were ordered in the same period, so there is a significant decrease of more than 85%.

At the same time, the situation has resulted in many existing orders in the shipbuilding market have been canceled, and for Aalborg Industries this has meant a reduction in the current order-book for a total value of USD 400 million.

It therefore anticipated that in 2010 and 2011 there will be a lower activity levels throughout the Aalborg Industries Group. This has led to the management today has informed the company's employees on a planned reduction in personnel. In Aalborg around 100 employees, representing 17% of the Danish workforce will be laid-off.

CEO Jan Vestergaard Olsen said: "It is annoying to see so many skilled and talented employees leave. However, there is no alternative when the market potential is changing so dramatically as we have experienced the last six years".

"We note that an economic crisis of this dimension, and the effect it has had on our customers, will have an influenced on Aalborg Industries, which is why we now have responded to the market conditions".

"We have reason to believe that activity in the Aalborg Industries Group will rise again when the economy recover, and moreover, we have continued high expectations of a significant demand for our new green products when the decided environmental regulations for shipping will be finally implemented globally. However, it is not the assessment that this will happen on a large scalewithin the next year, so we have to react now. "

About:

Aalborg Industries is a leading equipment and service supplier in the marine sector and a supplier of industrial products to selected key markets.

The headquarters of Aalborg Industries is located in the city of Aalborg in Denmark and traces its history as a boiler engineering and manufacturing company back to 1919. From its origins as part of Aalborg Shipyard, Aalborg Industries grew to supplying marine boilers to other shipyards internationally and developed a business within supply and service of industrial and power station boilers.

Since the late 1960s, Aalborg Industries has carried out boiler service around the world and opened its first subsidiary abroad in 1978. In the past decade, additional resources have been invested in strengthening the company's expertise in service and equipment supply for Floating Production Systems (the offshore market).

In recent decades, Aalborg Industries has acquired several leading marine equipment companies and a couple of industrial companies.

Today, Aalborg Industries is the world's leading marine boiler engineering company and manufacturer and a major supplier of inert gas systems, thermal fluid systems, and shell & tube heat exchangers. The global business areas are:

- Marine Boilers and Heat Exchangers »
- Inert Gas Systems »
- Thermal Fluid Systems»
- Floating Production Systems »
- Global After Sales »
- Industrial Boilers»

The Aalborg Industries Group is a private limited company owned by Nordic investment companies. The Group generally designs and manufactures all its own products at its own facilities. The engineering centres are in Aalborg, Nijmegen, Rotterdam, Kobe, Rauma, Singapore, Sydney and Petrópolis while the major factories are located in China, Denmark, Brazil and Vietnam.