New North Sea assignments for DeepOcean with offshore wind and oil & gas players

November 29, 2022, by Melisa Čavčić

Norwegian-headquartered ocean services provider DeepOcean has been awarded – what it describes as – substantial contracts by three oil majors – Equinor, ConocoPhillips and BP – for work in the North Sea.

The new awards, worth a total of NOK 2 billion (over $199 million), involve subsea inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR); subsea construction; removal and recycling of subsea equipment; and subsea survey scopes in the North Sea region. These deals are expected to keep the firm busy until the end of 2026.

Olaf A. Hansen, managing director of DeepOcean’s operations in Europe, commented: “Energy supply is of great importance, DeepOcean has a large fleet of very capable subsea vessels, and a highly talented workforce to support energy security and the green transition in the energy markets.

“We are delighted to receive these important awards from some of our key clients both in oil and gas markets and within offshore wind.”

Following its diversification move, DeepOcean has ramped up its headcount in 2022 by employing close to 200 new people, including young trainees and apprentices, skilled offshore workers and engineers to add to the firm’s in-house engineering team.

Rolf Ivar Sørdal, DeepOcean’s commercial director in Europe, remarked: “In recent years, future workload visibility has been limited in our industry. We are therefore pleased to see that the market is changing.

“A solid long-term order backlog will enable us to continue accelerating our ongoing technology initiatives, which are aimed at achieving more efficient work execution, greener operations, support the energy transition and our ambition to reduce cost level for operators in the ocean space.”

These technology initiatives entail the construction of DeepOcean’s unmanned surface vehicle (USV), using subsea autonomous inspection drones (AID), and making the onshore Remote Operations Centre in Haugesund an integral part of operators’ and its own offshore operations.

Regarding DeepOcean’s recent deals, it is worth noting that the Norwegian firm inked a charter agreement in October 2022 with Simon Møkster Shipping for an MPSV, which is set to be deployed in the renewables and oil & gas markets.