‘Global subsea player’ arising as DeepOcean acquires Shelf Subsea

Ocean services provider DeepOcean has acquired 100% of the shares in Australia-based subsea services provider Shelf Subsea, creating what it says is a global subsea player and expanding its footprint into Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.

Headquartered in Australia, Shelf Subsea has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Saudi Arabia with approximately 200 employees, currently operating a fleet of three chartered multipurpose dive support vessels, multiple remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), various subsea installation equipment, and a number of diving systems.

The company offers engineering and project management for subsea construction and installation, subsea survey and positioning services, subsea inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) services, as well as removal and recycling of subsea assets.

The combined group will have approximately 1,800 employees and generate over $1 billion in revenue.

“DeepOcean and Shelf Subsea offer similar services, but have distinct geographical strongholds that complement each other. When combined, we will provide customers worldwide with access to a comprehensive pool of expertise and capabilities,” said Øyvind Mikaelsen, CEO of DeepOcean.

“We look forward to combining our leading technology and innovative solutions with Shelf Subsea’s operations in the APAC region, as well as gaining valuable learnings from their leading project model. We are very impressed by the customer relations built up by the management of Shelf Subsea.”

According to DeepOcean, the transaction enables the global expansion of its operating model founded on engineering, project management, proprietary technology, subsea tool pool, ROVs and access to a versatile subsea fleet.

Shelf Subsea will now be integrated into DeepOcean and will form the company’s business region DeepOcean APAC.

The parties did not disclose the financial details of the transaction.

“I believe the strong industrial and geographical alignment between Shelf Subsea and DeepOcean is clear. The combined group will be able to provide customers with a more flexible and integrated suite of services. In addition, we look forward to gaining access to DeepOcean’s autonomous technologies and remote operations solutions, which will undoubtedly add value to our customers in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions,” said Colin McGinnis, CEO of Shelf Subsea.