TKMS closes in on German Naval Yards

Naval News has provided a new update on the ongoing consolidation among the German shipbuilding industry. While German defence giant Rheinmetall is in the process of acquiring NVL (Lürssen’s naval shipbuilding division), TKMS is hot in pursuit of acquiring the other half of the shipyard in Kiel from German Naval Yards.

Both companies share not only a yard but a common ancestry. Each descends from the once-unified Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft. Today, German Naval Yards occupies part of the old HDW surface-ship estate, while TKMS controls the submarine-focused facilities.

German Naval Yards occupies the smaller half of the equation. With roughly four hundred employees, the yard has long leaned on a combination of historical expertise and versatile infrastructure to stay competitive. It has handled diverse projects, from naval combatants to salvage-vessel conversions and specialized maritime platforms like ammo-disposal systems.

TKMS needs no introduction. The company commands a workforce in the thousands and an order backlog measured in the double-digit billions. Kiel has been recently expanded, and capacity is planned to increase through the acquisition and reopening of the Wismar yard. With expected future workloads, including the rumored Type 127 frigate line, TKMS is quickly approaching a capacity wall.

Ots for this reason that we are seeing this acquisition. It not only represents a reunifying of the Kiel yard under one banner, but provides TKMS nearly immediate capacity at their home base. While GNYK has provided capacity to TKMS in the past theough leasing, having full control will provide the company with more flexibility in program scheduling, and deeper control over Kiel's Naval Industrial Base.

All that infrastructure, the dry docks, halls and equipment are already built and ready to be integrated into the companies wider operation. For Canada, this consolidation also provides TKMS relief against one of its biggest detractions in CPSP.

While this acquisition is still not enough to compete with the combined footprint of both Hanwha and Hyundai, capacity has been one of the things that the Germans have struggled with in CPSP.

There is great concern to whoever TKMS has the capacity to fulfill Canada's order in a reasonable time frame. While they can deliver enough, as according to requirements, the quicker one can deliver the more interest the government has.

The acquisition of Wismar is a good step towards that, but that capacity won't be coming along and till the later 2020s. The current plan I believe is for the 2028-2029 timeline.

The acquisition of German Naval Yards provides an almost immediate capacity to the company. Even if it's not building submarines, if you can shift certain things over to German Naval yards to create extra capacity, hypothetically a Canadian order, than the benefit is still there.

In this case I can't speak to whether German Naval yards facilities could handle building the 212CD with their current facilities, although I imagine they could, and of course the article does list submarine construction as a possible option.

Nevertheless this is an important move for TKMS on CPSP. It goes against one of the major things that's working against them. It won't get them up to Korean levels, that's just a product of the massive scale of Korean Shipbuilding.

However this will help and it will be noted. Thats assuming that this acquisition does go throughz though from the sounds of it, it's getting pretty close.