Cadeler CEO: 'Developers are incredibly dependent on us doing a good job'

Now into its second year since merging with former rival Eneti, Cadeler may be building the world's biggest fleet of wind turbine installation vessels but CEO Mikkel Gleerup thinks that satisfying booming demand is as much about making better use of existing resources as it is about shipbuilding.

Cadeler’s merger with London-headquartered Eneti was completed in December 2023, and this is one of the reasons that Gleerup describes 2025 as a “transformative year” for the company.

“We ran a full year of integration in 2024, and though this process continues, I would say that 2025 is the first year that we actually started off as a team," he says.

The merged company has its headquarters in Copenhagen and is listed in Oslo and New York.

Gleerup describes the process of discovering the relative strengths of the two companies as his "greatest joy", noting that for both this often means admitting there was a better way of doing things than their own way.

One of the most significant changes to Cadeler’s own business model over recent years is the increased focus on the T&I market for wind turbine foundations.

"This was mainly due to requests from bigger clients, making it clear that they would really encourage us to do this and would support it.”

The current newbuild programme includes three of Cadeler's A-Class vessels targeted at this segment, the last of which will be delivered in 2027.

The first of these was booked by offshore wind farm developer Orsted from 2027 to 2030, providing the kind of market signal that helped spur more shipyard bookings.

Call the cavalry

The other reason that 2025 is a banner year for Cadeler, is this dramatic upscaling and modernisation of its fleet, Gleerup says.

The company is taking delivery of four three next-generation wind turbine installation vessels and one foundation installation vessel this year alone. This is part of a seven-unit building spree that will give the company an 11-vessel fleet, the largest in the industry.

These harsh environment WTIVs have a deck space of 5,600 square metres, a payload of 17,600 tonnes and main crane capacity of above 2,500 tonnes. They are designed to transport and install up to seven complete 15MW turbine sets, or five sets of 20MW-plus turbines, per load.

The building spree represents the kind of response that offshore developers hope to see when they worry about a shortage of vessels able to transport and install 20MW-plus turbines and do so on a growing number of gigawatt scale wind farms.

Developers are responding to these pressures by seeking longer-term contracts, more advanced bookings or preferred vendor agreements.

"We are already in discussions with clients about projects that happen as far out as seven or eight years into the future," Gleerup says.

Gleerup won't say exactly how big a turbine the P-class jack-up vessels can manage but confirms that it goes beyond "the largest models we see in planning at the moment".

On the other hand, the Cadeler CEO thinks there is sometimes too much focus on assessing the supply and demand balance in terms of vessel numbers. He believes analysis of bottlenecks or vessel “shortages” does not always take due account of the elasticity of demand charts, the capacity of the vessel and the solutions that can be offered.

"First, you also have to consider the degree to which demand is a reflection of political ambitions rather than something that the industry actually believes. There's often a disconnect there, so it's dangerous to talk about these things in absolute terms,” he says.

Gleerup thinks the bottleneck question should also be considered through the prism of efficiency, and gains that can be made through longer-term partnerships.

“We believe that the industry can help tackle these bottlenecks by working more closely together to ensure that the equipment we actually have, whether factories, tools or vessels, is worked at a maximum flexibility and efficiency to build as much as possible with the supply chain we have,” he states.

“In general, we have seen that they are coming to us earlier, but I think it's also part of an overall de-risking strategy where you are trying to secure the right asset for the right wind farm early on so you have the best solution.

"They want to ensure the best installation capacity for their projects. We believe in the benefit of having an ability across a fleet to support clients with the various kinds of challenges that can occur when you build something as complicated as a big wind farm,” Gleerup says.

The word efficiency crops up and lot in Gleerup's conversation. “In offshore wind, which is not a one-off industry, it often means you are doing things 100, 150 or 200 times. So, if you able to save, for example, eight hours per location on something, then you save 66 days if it's 200 locations," he says.

Multi-purposing of vessels is also a growing theme as Cadeler introduces its vessels to the market.

“We have done quite a lot of O&M work historically and we view this as an attractive sector because you can just see from our installation pipeline that the installed base grows, which means that the requirement for our services is likely to increase as well,” Gleerup comments.

“We want to participate in this market because we have a capable fleet of jack-ups that can support it.”

More vessels needed?

Interests rates and costs remain high, and shipyard slots scarce, but Gleerup says the company continues to have an open mind and believe in the market long-term.

“The basis for growing our company has been to work with our partners and ensure that we know that there is a demand for these assets that we are launching into the market. In general, I think we are comfortable about the situation on our assets and believe that we are in a good place," he says.

Cadeler recently closed financing for two of its “A-class” jack up vessels, which Gleerup says was achieved within expected parameters.

"The overall financing strategy for Cadeler is a process that began almost five years ago when we started discussing with banks about our strategy and what we wanted to do.

“We have worked very, very hard to build structured financing that will offer a good solution to us and to our clients. Ultimately, if you pay a lot for your financing, then this is reflected throughout the company and how it approaches the market. To have the right financing, you need to ensure that you have the right contracts in place with the right partners. You need to buy from the right yards so you deliver on time and within budget,” he said.

Gleerup often stressed the advantages of placing serial orders with the Cosco shipyard in terms of lessons learned and booking capacity.

Without such relationships, he warned that it has become "incredibly difficult" to get a yard slot.

Gleerup said he senses a growing comprehension among larger clients in the industry that has become more costly to build a vessel than before, and describes speculative construction as “very challenging”.

But he also recognises that clients are increasingly prepared to pay for the right assets managed efficiently.

“[Developers] are incredibly dependent on us doing a good job because if we don't, then they have a lot of expensive equipment standing in a port that doesn't generate anything. That is, for sure, more costly than paying for the right contractor to install,” he states.

“The industry has seen some unfortunate examples of wind farms not following the installation schedule. Everyone can have issues, but having a team that is strong enough to solve such issues, and potential capacity to offer support through alternative assets, makes a big difference.”

On a fleet such as Cadeler’s “redundancies” can mean backup systems on individual vessels, but it can certainly also be a strategy that allows scope for an extra vessel to help a project catch up lost time.

“There are many, many ways to offer this kind of support. It could potentially also be to support where we were not originally involved, or cases where we can negotiate a release in one project to help another project for the benefit of all the involved parties. These are the kind of solutions we discuss,” he says.

“If a merger, and if an integration is done well, then it's a truly synergistic process where you come out on the other side and two plus two is not four anymore, it's five or six, right?"