DOF Subsea

Growing portfolio

Although DOF Subsea was officially founded during May 2005, when its parent company DOF ASA acquired GEO Group AS and its subsidiary Geoconsult AS, the company’s roots can actually be traced back to 1981.

Since that time working through the 1980s to the present day, DOF Subsea has established a dedicated capability within all of the major oil and gas production areas around the world. Today the company offers a full spectrum of subsea support services that cover the entire lifecycle of oil and gas fields. DOF Subsea currently maintains a strong presence in the North Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, Asia and West Africa, with a highly skilled workforce of over 1600 subsea personnel and marine crew.

DOF Subsea provides a growing portfolio of services to clients in its Atlantic Region from bases in Bergen and Aberdeen, as well as smaller offices in Luanda, Angola. “Obviously depending on each region we have different clients,” says the business acquisition director for the DOF Subsea Atlantic region, Gert Juel Rasmussen. “However, in the North Sea we have worked extensively with Teekay, Statoil and ConocoPhillips, as well as with Shell, Saipem, and Maersk during 2014; we look forward to continuing to work with all of these companies. We offer tailored solutions to every client, because we know that every scope is different. We work with each client to understand the project, and set our key performance indicators (KPI) and deliverables based on their requirements. Our delivery is of a consistently high standard and we believe that this is demonstrated in the strength and longevity of the relationships with our clients.”

Presently DOF Subsea divides its operations into direct services carried out on behalf of clients and the provision of vessels on long-term time charters to operators and service providers. “Within the business we have what we will call our project departments, where we carry out projects for clients ourselves and we also have quite a few vessels that we charter out on a TC basis to companies like Subsea 7 and Technip for example. Currently around two-thirds of our income is from our projects business and the other third comes from our charter business,” Gert elaborates.

“I think our key strengths are that as a group we own and operate one of the largest fleets in the world for offshore business, and that we have two core business segments comprised of our long-term charter agreements and execution of subsea operations,” he continues. “I think the combination of the two has given us a little more strength in pursuing opportunities.” Presently the DOF Subsea fleet is comprised of 23 owned subsea vessels as well as a further five vessels that are chartered to the company from third parties. It also maintains a growing fleet of 49 ROVs with a further 19 on order, as well as an AUV unit and several diving spreads located in Australia.

Additionally DOF Subsea currently has five vessels under construction in Norway and Brazil. Four of the ships are pipe lay vessels built in collaboration with Technip, two of which are under construction in Norway while the remaining two are being built in Brazil where all four vessels will eventually be deployed on long-term charters. The final vessel that DOF Subsea is currently building is a large construction ship, which is being built in Norway by Vard.

The bulk of the DOF Subsea fleet is dedicated to undertaking projects directly on behalf of the company’s clients and its diverse service package is broadly divided into four areas comprised of subsea construction, inspection maintenance and repair (IMR), engineering, and survey. Its subsea construction capability incorporates an expanding fleet of state-of-the-art vessels, teams of dedicated engineers and project managers, and skilled offshore crews to ensure that its clients’ projects run smoothly and to schedule. Within its engineering division DOF Subsea provides innovative engineering services and effective solutions. Its engineering capabilities include comprehensive front-end engineering, feasibility studies, concept development, design, installation and removal of subsea structures, flexible flowlines and umbilicals. Furthermore the company also routinely undertakes naval architecture, structural engineering, mechanical design, analysis and operations, and engineering across a broad range of applications including mooring installation, tow-out and hook up of FPSOs.

Since the DOF Subsea brand was first established, it has continued to employ and enhance the survey expertise that the company incorporated with its acquisition of Geoconsult. Today DOF Subsea specialises in providing positioning control in support of its clients’ field installation projects, from near shore shallow fields to ultra-deep offshore developments. The company is also a major provider of detailed bathymetric and geophysical data to the oil industry with a track record spanning more than 25 years. “Services include seabed mapping, geophysical survey, and the entire range of field positioning services associated with umbilical, riser and flowline installations and other subsea infrastructure,” Gert explains. “As part of this service, DOF Subsea leads the industry in providing deepwater subsea metrology using acoustics, photogrammetry and smart wire to measure and position spool pieces, jumpers and all subsea structures. We always utilise the most technically suitable package to suit the requirements of each scope of work.”

The final facet of the DOF Subsea project division’s operation portfolio is its range of IMR services. The company has specialists in place, across all disciplines in both onshore and offshore applications. Its onshore project teams work with the planning and engineering of IMR operations, and the company’s vessels have dedicated and experienced crews well accustomed to executing IMR work including pipeline and structure inspection, module handling, commissioning, ROV and intervention services and diving services and intervention.

Through its wide global coverage and turnkey subsea services package DOF Subsea is able to deliver a strong and highly reliable solutions package to its clients. In terms of growth the company is diverse enough to concentrate on more energetic regions while others experience periods of slow down. “We think that the Norwegian sector will be challenging throughout 2015 because Statoil is decreasing its activity, but we also think that this is something that will only last a short time and that operations will pick up again later on 2016 or 2017,” Gert says.

Commenting on the company’s wider strategy within the Atlantic region specifically over the next three to five years Gert concludes: “Our focus on winning new work and excellent delivery will continue to strengthen DOF Subsea as a capable, solid supplier of subsea solutions with a strong project-proven track record behind us. With aging subsea structures in both Norwegian and UK sector we expect to see increased IMR spend, which will present an important opportunity for the DOF Subsea to capture a greater share of this segment in our region. With high exploration activity predicted, especially in Norway, opportunities also exist for survey and positioning services.”

DOF Subsea
Services: Subsea lifecycle services