Nordseewerke GmbH, a company of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, has got two new shipbuilding orders for 3,400 TEU container ships. These orders mean the development, design and building of a new generation of compact container ships with a capacity from 3,100 to 3,700 TEU. The contractor of this order is the GEBAB, which is based in Meerbusch. A total of 28 container ships have been delivered to GEBAB since 1987, and 11 additional ships are still to be built by the ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems' shipyards based in Emden, Kiel and Hamburg. The owner of the two new ships is the shipping company Martime GmbH in Elsfleth.

This new order has been made possible by an additional collective labour agreement between the business management and the works council of Nordseewerke, and the IG-Metall union as well. Among other things, this agreement includes a so-called innovation wages agreement which means that the employees of Nordseewerke bear a part of the costs for the development and building of the new container ship series. In this way, Nordseewerke?s employees make a considerable contribution to the development of these modern container ships by the effort of additional working hours, which guarantees an employment until the middle of 2008.

The new ships with the yard numbers 556 and 557 will be built according to Germanischer Lloyd regulations and feature the following main technical data:
･ Overall length: approx. 228.00 m
･ Moulded breadth: 32.20 m
･ Moulded depth: 18.55 m
･ Deadweight: approx. 42,250 t
･ Container capacity : 3,414 TEU incl. 500 connections for refrigerated containers
･ Propulsion 100% MCR: 28,880 kW at 104 rpm
･ Service speed: approx. 23.75 kts