Partrac sets up US subsidiary

Partrac, the Scottish-based marine survey and coastal consultancy specialist, will soon launch its US subsidiary Partrac GeoMarine in Houston, Texas, where the company will offers the full range of services and products already offered in Europe.

“Houston is the ideal US hub for Partrac GeoMarine,” said Partrac Co-Founder Sam Athey. “We wanted a city with a highly skilled workforce that reflects the wide range of market sectors that Partrac operates in and is within easy reach of both the Gulf and East coasts of the United States. We see these as having the biggest growth potential for our services and products.”

Partrac GeoMarine’s market sectors include both conventional and renewable offshore energy, including oil & gas, decommissioning, wind, wave and tidal energy, as well as dredging and coastal engineering.

“Partrac has a number of unique technologies that we want to bring to the US to help solve some of the problems and answer some of the questions. For example, our unique sediment tracing and benthic flume technologies have been used around the world to help with issues as diverse as scour around offshore monopiles, freespanning of pipes and cables, and tracking the fate of dredged sediments,” Sam Athey said.

“We’ve developed our tracers to be benign in the marine environment – we’ve even used them to examine smothering of corals in Hawaii,” Athey added. “Our experience gained over the last 15 years collecting MetOcean data and working on windfarm installations in European waters – including the world’s first floating windfarm – puts us in a great position to assist the growing offshore renewables market in the US.”

The launch of Partrac’s US subsidiary is timed to coincide with the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) 2018 to be held in Houston from April 30 – May 3.