Global Marine Group expands UK footprint

The Global Marine Group (GMG), a provider of offshore engineering services to the renewables, oil & gas, and telecommunications industries, has expanded its operations base in the UK to include the Port of Blyth, Northumberland.

According to GMG’s statement from last week, Blyth is a major support base for UK offshore energy projects.

Operating from the Port of Blyth, both of GMG’s two business units, CWind, which provides services to the offshore wind industry, and Global Marine, which provides fibre optic cable solutions to multiple sectors, will be able to offer regionally-focused support, resulting in faster mobilization, greater flexibility and enhanced response times for customers, GMG said.

Blyth will serve as a regional base for strategic asset management and modular equipment storage, as well as a mobilization and deployment site for the GMG fleet, complementing the group’s existing operational UK bases at Grimsby, Lincolnshire and Portland, Dorset. A number of GMG assets, including C.S. Sovereign and CS Recorder, two multi-role DP2 vessels with track records in both power and fibre optic cable installation and repair, will operate out of Blyth, utilizing local engineering skills and regional business support networks.

Portland will continue to provide services to GMG’s power, renewable energy, oil & gas and telecommunications cable maintenance agreement customers, while Grimsby will predominantly deliver regional support for the offshore wind sector. Blyth will enable GMG access to a wider market in the Greater North Sea, as well as further afield in Europe, where a large offshore wind customer base already exists.

Ian Douglas, Chief Executive Officer of Global Marine Group, said: “We expect that by operating in close physical proximity to our customers, suppliers and trusted partners, we will further strengthen our relationships with key market players and continue to reinforce our reputation for delivering projects safely, on time and to a high level of quality. The combination of being in the right physical location, having a team of highly-capable onshore and offshore staff and access to group assets, enables us to offer cohesive installation and maintenance services to our customers in multiple sectors.”

Martin Lawlor, Chief Executive of the Port of Blyth, said: “We view this as another critical step forward in our development as an offshore energy base.”