Canadian Shipbuilder Davie Buys Another Finnish Shipyard
The 7.5 million euro deal to buy the Mäntyluoto Shipyard (located in Pori on Finland's West Coast) will give Helsinki Shipyard its own steel production facility.
According to YLE, Finland’s state-owned broadcaster:
Finnish company Enersense is selling its subsidiary Enersense Offshore — the Mäntyluoto1 shipyard in Pori — to Canadian-owned shipbuilding group Davie, which also owns the Helsinki Shipyard.
The deal, announced Tuesday, is valued at approximately 7.5 million euros. Of that, five million euros will be paid at closing, and the remaining 2.5 million euros six months later. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of September 2025.
About 100 employees work at the Pori facility. According to the statement, they will continue under the new ownership. At the moment, most of them are temporarily furloughed.
Those furloughed workers will be back to work soon, according to a LinkedIn post from Davie’s CEO James Davies:
With the acquisition of Enersense Offshore Oy, Davie and Helsinki Shipyard become Finland’s only shipbuilder with full in-house capability, from ship design and steel production to block construction. In fact, we’re now better positioned across the entire shipbuilding value chain – from design to delivery.
This transaction secures a future for the highly skilled team in Mäntyluoto, boosts our capacity to deliver complex vessels at pace, and reinforces our ability to serve both European and North American markets.
It also supports critical projects like Polar Max, the next-generation heavy icebreaker we’re building for Canada. Steel production will begin in Pori imminently – a clear sign that this is not just an acquisition, but an acceleration.
Why This Matters
Steel production is the process of taking steel plates and profiles and turning them into the large ‘blocks’ that are assembled to create a modern ship.
Helsinki Shipyard sold off its own steel production facilities about twenty years ago, leading many to ask where it would do its steel production for upcoming projects. Although a Helsinki Shipyard rep told me that they have never delivered a ship late because of subcontracted steel work, this purchase places block construction within Davie- and therefore Helsinki Shipyard’s- direct control.
Mäntyluoto can deliver the required blocks. The shipyard certainly has heavy steel production capability based on its past production of spar platforms and the like.
This is also good news for the Mäntyluoto shipyard, which has faced an uncertain future. From the same YLE article cited above:
The Mäntyluoto yard has long been underutilised and has seen several owners over the years. It was previously known for specialising in offshore oil rig platforms.
The deal is seen as a significant win for the city of Pori, bringing renewed activity to a key industrial facility with deep historical ties to Finnish engineering and manufacturing.
Thoughts and Comments
Davie continues to take action to improve its ability to build icebreakers. This deal is good for the future of icebreaker production (regardless of the client) and is good for the people of Pori.
It could also be good for the U.S., if it ends up signing a deal with Davie for U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers. As I’ve stated earlier, Helsinki Shipyard is the only shipyard with a recent track record of delivering icebreakers within thirty-six month of contract signing. My goal in writing about icebreakers has always been to provide information on how the U.S. Coast Guard can acquire the number of icebreakers that it says it needs in a relevant timeframe.
There are many reasons for the current problems with U.S. government shipbuilding, especially the Polar Security Cutter Program. Those problems must be solved. But we can’t wait for government reform and the growth of the U.S. maritime industrial base to begin acquiring more ships. These things must be done in parallel.
Davie plans to do its part through its purchase of and investment in shipyards in Texas. With this in mind, a contract for a class of icebreakers that are first built solely in Finland with work transferred to Texas as those facilities come online certainly appeals to me.
Davie’s CEO may have slightly overstated the value of having everything in-house in his LinkedIn post. It seems likely he was referring to the Finnish shipyard Rauma Marine Constructions (RMC), which does not have its own in-house design team (but does have its own steel production facility, a fact that RMC has repeatedly emphasized). As many past icebreaker projects have involved collaboration with Finnish design firms (such as the Aker Arctic), RMC can locally acquire any design support that it needs. Good steel production can be harder to contract, so bringing this in house is definitely good for Davie/Helsinki Shipyard.
Coming next: an overview of recent news from Europe concerning icebreaker operations and procurement.
Until next time-
All the Best,
PGR
Mäntyluoto translates roughly as “pine tree island” or “pine rock”. A mänty is a pine tree, and loutu means rock or tiny island.
7.5 million euro?
Am I missing something, or does that seem like a rather low price?
Granted, my experience with purchasing operable Finnish shipyards is negligible, but still…
Strikes me as quite a bargain!