Social: Turning a gap into progress
In 2025, Solvang emerged stronger following a delay between vessel sales and fleet renewal, according to HR Director Kjetil Meling. Solvang now has a larger fleet – supported by stronger cohesion, loyalty, and quality among the crew.
“Patience and foresight is required when preparing for a new phase of growth driven by fleet renewal,” says Kjetil Meland, Solvang’s HR Director.
few years ago, Solvang started the process of renewing the fleet and selling older vessels, which meant a temporary scale-down of crew capacity in the years up to 2025, when the VLGC Clipper Explorer was added to the fleet.
From 2026, Solvang will take delivery of seven new VLGC newbuildings.
“Throughout this years-long transition, our main priority has been to safeguard Solvang’s core competencies while caring for each individual employee,” Meling says.
Individual solutions
Solvang manages its crewing operations from Manila in the Philippines, Riga in Latvia, as well as Stavanger, where the corporate headquarters also is responsible for onshore staff.
“To keep lay-offs at an absolute minimum, we worked closely with employees to find individual solutions. This included shorter contracts agreed through dialogue, extended leave arrangements, and pension solutions for employees nearing the end of their careers,” Meling explains.
Despite flexible arrangements, a limited number of redundancies were unavoidable. In those cases, individual arrangements were made to support the people affected.
Loyalty tested – and confirmed
The number of tailor-made arrangements in 2025 provided Solvang with a new picture of loyalty and commitment across the organization. While employees were free to pursue opportunities outside the company during the waiting period, the majority chose to stay, even in cases of reduced salary payouts due to less sailing days.
“It requires patience to accept longer promotion timelines, and loyalty to remain with an employer through a period of uncertainty,” Meling notes.
Solvang’s core values—team spirit, mutual respect, and quality—apply not only to employees, but equally to the company as an employer.
“We deliberately chose not to release personnel simply because capacity was temporarily reduced,” Meling says. “Instead, we accepted the cost of bridging the gap. The financial implications were significant, and we are grateful for the owners’ long-term commitment and goodwill throughout 2025.”
Stronger collaboration going forward
At the end of 2025 Solvang prepared to enter the next phase of its fleet renewal with strengthened confidence.
“The experience has boosted collaboration across the organization, and together we have gained a deeper appreciation of how each individual contributes to the whole.”
The HR Director summarises the qualities that define a Solvang employee:
“You look beyond your own position and ask what you can contribute to the company. You support and develop those around you, and you take responsibility for leadership whenever the opportunity arises. Ultimately, we seek people who share these human qualities—and who are willing to grow with Solvang.”
GRI references
202-1 Ratios of standard entry level wage by gender compared to local minimum wage: Complying with Norwegian law, independent of location or gender. Local statutory minimum wage levels are not disclosed for any location, hence no wage-to-minimum wage ratios disclosed.
202-2 Proportion of senior management hired from the local community: 100% (Stavanger, Oslo, Riga and Manila)
203-1 Infrastructure investments and services supported: Streetlight project, the Philippines.
203-2 Significant indirect economic impacts: I. 80% of wages to seagoing personnel from the Philippines are returned to local communities. ii. Local job creation and supplier jobs related to newbuildings in South Korea. Local contribution throughs fleet deployment, eco tech investments, training, and participation in maritime clusters.
2-23a-c/e-f, 2-24, 2-25, 2-26, 2-27, 2-28 Strategies, policies and practices: See solvangship.no/gri
401-2 Benefits provided to full-time employees only: None, all employees benefit from life insurance, health care, disability coverage, parental leave, and pension share schemes.
401-3 Parental leave: Parental leave rights for all employees. In 2025, 2 women and 1 man on parental leave, of whom 1 woman still on leave by year-end. Otherwise, 100% return-to-work rate/retention rate.
402-1 Minimum notice periods regarding operational changes: According to specification in the collective bargaining agreement.
