MHI Vestas to cut more Danish jobs as demand slows

MHI Vestas has announced 148 more job cuts in Denmark. The offshore wind turbine manufacturer will reduce staff numbers at its facilities in Nakskov, Lindø 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 Lindø 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 Lindø plant – 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’s announcement.

Claus Ungstrup, vice president and head of manufacturing at MHI Vestas, explained: “We’ve consistently been ramping up our production capacity in the last several years, and now we’re seeing a pause in that growth. 

“We 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.”

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

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

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

The company said that this was due to “lower delivery activity”.

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

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

It received just one firm, unconditional order in Q2 – for SSE and Total’s 1,075MW Seagreen wind farm – 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.