MHI Vestas to cut more Danish jobs as demand slows

The Japanese-Danish manufacturer said it had upped production capacity when demand grew in recent years and was now responding to the current market

by Craig Richard 11 August 2020

Deliveries to Parkwind's Northwester 2 project off Belgium was MHI Vestas鈥 main source of H2 revenue

MHI Vestas has announced 148 more job cuts in Denmark. The offshore wind turbine manufacturer will reduce staff numbers at its facilities in Nakskov, Lind酶 and Esbjerg, with the vast majority of cuts taking place from next month.

This latest round of redundancies is in addition to the company cutting 25 workers from its nacelle factory in Lind酶 and 21 from its blade factory in Nakskov, announced in Jannuary.

In total, MHI Vestas will lose 98 workers from Nakskov and five from its power converter module facility in Esbjerg in September, and 45 from its Lind酶 plant 鈥 14 next month, followed by 31 in Q1 2021.

It had about 1,400 employees in production roles across its European facilities prior to today鈥檚 announcement.

Claus Ungstrup, vice president and head of manufacturing at MHI Vestas, explained: 鈥淲e鈥檝e consistently been ramping up our production capacity in the last several years, and now we鈥檙e seeing a pause in that growth.聽

鈥淲e are confident that our manufacturing remains competitive when delivering offshore wind turbines in Europe and that Denmark-based production will continue to serve as the benchmark when adding facilities in other regions.鈥

It announced the job cuts on the same day its Q2 results were released, together with those of parent company Vestas.

MHI Vestas 鈥 a 50:50 joint venture between Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Danish turbine manufacturer Vestas 鈥 recorded a net loss of 鈧12 million in Q2, down from a 鈧22 million net profit in the same period one year earlier.

It also made a 鈧6 million net loss in the first half of 2020, down from a 鈧32 million net profit in the first six months of last year.

The company said that this was due to 鈥渓ower delivery activity鈥.

This also caused Q2 revenue to fall by 62% to 鈧196 million, and H1 revenue to fall by 56% to 鈧416 million, it added.聽

Deliveries to Parkwind's Northwester 2 project off Belgium was MHI Vestas鈥 main source of H2 revenue.

It received just one firm, unconditional order in Q2 鈥 for SSE and Total鈥檚 1,075MW Seagreen wind farm 鈥 adding to 728MW of orders in the first quarter of the year for an H1 intake of 1,083MW.

The manufacturer had no confirmed firm orders in Q2 2019, but 50MW of orders in Q1 2019.