Uddevallavarvet
The Swedish shipbuilding company Uddevallavarvet existed in Uddevalla from 1946 to 1986 .
history
The shipyard was founded in 1946 by the Swedish shipowner Gustaf Birger Thordén (Thordén Lines). After the end of the Second World War, Thordén acquired the complete facilities of two shipyards belonging to the US industrialist Henry J. Kaiser . Its shipyards in Portland, Maine and Providence, Rhode Island manufactured Liberty and Victory ships during the war and would no longer have been economically viable in the United States after 1945. After dismantling and rebuilding, the first ship was launched in Uddevalla in 1947, the Ally Thordén . Within a few years, the company grew to become the largest employer in Bohuslän Province and, ten years after it was founded, already employed 2,600 people, and at peak times even almost 4,000.
In 1957 Thordén negotiated a construction contract for several ships for a US shipping company, which required an expansion of the construction capacity. In 1958, Sørviksvarvet, a second manufacturing company was opened, which was designed for the construction of super tankers in series shipbuilding . Since Thordén had budgeted the investment volume far too low, the company went bankrupt in 1958, despite full order books. In the same year, the creditor banks forced Thordén to leave the company and the Swedish state and the lending banks took over Uddevallavarvet and continued to operate. In 1963 the shipbuilding company Eriksbergs Mekaniska Verkstad took over the 50% stake of the banks of Uddevallavarvet, but gave it back to the Swedish state in 1971. This merged Uddevallavarvet 1977 in the course of the shipbuilding crisis with Götaverken , Finnboda Varv and Karlskronavarvet to form the shipbuilding group Svenska Varv .
In 1978, the almost 500,000 ton tanker Nanny was built on the Uddevallavarvet , the largest ship ever built in Sweden and long the widest ship in the world. In addition, Uddevallavarvet built larger series of VLCC and Aframax tankers from the 1970s to the early 1980s . After Svenska Varv had taken over Eriksberg , Kockums and Öresundsvarvet at the end of the 1970s and the Swedish state provided for state aid for the consistently loss-making shipbuilding to expire in 1985, it was decided to close Uddevallavarvet in December 1984. In the summer of 1986 the last two ships Okturus and Octavius were delivered to the Rederi Oktett from Stockholm. A total of 221 ships with a total load capacity of 11.1 million tons were built at the shipyard in 40 years of operation.
Shortly after the decision to close the shipyard, the government decided on January 23, 1985 to spend around two billion crowns on the creation of new jobs through new business enterprises, the improvement of the infrastructure and the development of tourism. Most of the money went to the car company Volvo , which built a new factory in Uddevalla that created around 1200 jobs. The car factory closed again in 2013, while tourism has now become the main industry in the province.
Web links
- Company page (Swedish)
- Pictures of the shipyard buildings (Swedish)
- Pictures of the shipyard's history (Swedish)