Van Oord, Euroports and Smulders combine competence to build the leading Baltic Sea offshore wind energy center in the Port of Liepaja

Today, 25 April 2024, at the largest wind energy conference in the Baltics “WindWorks”, leading Dutch offshore wind farm and port construction company Van Oord announced an agreement with the international port operator Euroports and the steelstructure manufacturer Smulders to create a consortium for joint development of an offshore wind and heavy lift terminal in the Port of Liepaja.

The new terminal in the Port of Liepaja will address the lack of the port infrastructure capacity needed for the construction of windfarms in the Baltic Sea. Moreover, the new terminal will be used for handling other large size commodities and for industrial manufacturing purposes. A 55-hectare area will be created through land reclamation. Multifunctional cargo handling infrastructures will be constructed that will provide an opportunity for new production and/or assembly complexes.

Euroports is one of the largest port infrastructure companies in Europe with 50 terminals globally and logistic platforms all over the world, strategically located on key trade routes in Europe and China. Each year Euroports handle more than 70 million tons of liquid, bulk, breakbulk and containerized cargoes.

Smulders is a multidisciplinary international construction company with more than 1700 employees spread across the sites in Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom, focusing on civil and industrial projects involving steel, and offshore wind energy.

Van Oord Project Manager Mark Bot: “Signing of this MoU with our partners is a huge step in the development of the new offshore wind and heavy lift terminal in Liepaja. Not only does it confirm the sincere interest of important industry partners, but it also brings the necessary expertise and commitment that are needed to develop a project of this magnitude in Liepaja”.     

Liepaja SEZ CEO Uldis Hmieļevskis expressed his satisfaction that the leading companies in the offshore wind industry have united and selected Liepaja as the most suitable place for the establishment of an offshore wind support base in the Baltic Region. "Van Oord, Euroports and Smulders are industry professionals who, by combining and sharing their competence in the sphere of wind energy, will contribute to the transformation of the energy industry in the Baltic Region and ensure good changes for the next generations".

The signed consortium agreement between Van Oord, Euroports and Smulders is the next step in achieving excellence in all aspects of the project development: 

1. Combining and leveraging knowledge from design to construction, commissioning, and maintenance. 
2. Creation of full-fledged solutions in the production of steel parts, logistics efficiency in the transportation of wind farm components.
3. Establishment of optimized supply chains, minimizing possible risks, which will create positive financial circulation.
4. The newly founded consortium sets high standards of environmental and social responsibility, including circular economy and sustainability.

4. Just to remind - at the beginning of the year 2024, Van Oord concluded a two-year reservation agreement with the Liepaja SEZ Authority to build a world-class offshore windfarm support base and a large size cargo handling terminal, which will start operating in 2027.