Mecklenburger Metallguss (MMG)

What they do

MMG designs, casts and machines fixed-pitch propellers for merchant ships, cruise liners, yachts, research vessels and navies. Its speciality is size. The company has made propellers of more than 130 tonnes for some of the largest container ships afloat, and states that it can produce fixed propellers up to 11.3 metres across. The alloy is nickel-aluminium bronze, which forms a protective oxide layer. Each large propeller takes months to make, and the regional paper Nordkurier reported in 2023 that MMG builds 70 to 90 a year.

Why it matters

Merchant shipbuilding moved to Korea, China and Japan decades ago, yet many of the propellers driving those ships come from a lakeside town in north-eastern Germany. In a 2023 interview with Unternehmeredition, managing director Lars Greitsch described MMG as the only maker of propellers of this size in Europe and as world market leader for propellers above 80 tonnes, with about 95 per cent of output exported, almost entirely to Asian shipyards. About 210 people work there, making it one of Waren's largest employers.

The scale draws attention even at Hamburg's port. In September 2018 the floating crane HHLA IV loaded a 110-tonne, 10.5-metre MMG propeller onto a container ship bound for Korea, where it was fitted to one of MSC's 23,000 TEU giants.

Products to know

• Large ship propellers: for container ships, VLCC tankers and LNG carriers.
• Retrofit propellers: energy-saving replacements for ships already in service; Hapag-Lloyd ordered 80, close to a full year's output.
• Naval and cruise propellers.

The German angle

The site's foundry tradition reaches back to an 1875 iron works in Waren, and propeller casting began in 1948. In East German times it belonged to the Rostock diesel engine works. After reunification the Treuhand privatised it, it passed through the Bremer Vulkan group and later the foundry holding DIHAG, and after the 2018 foundry crisis a majority went to Ukrainian-born shareholder Artur Abdinov alongside a management team. It is a rare East German industrial survivor that leads a world niche.

Sources

• Unternehmeredition: Immer eine Handbreit Wasser unterm Kiel
• Nordkurier: Schiffspropeller von der Müritz
• Marine Insight: HHLA loads world's biggest propeller
• MAGMA: Ship propellers from Waren on Lake Müritz