Norway headquartered DeepOcean Group has moved into the offshore geotechnical services market by acquiring ageotechnical drilling rig and agreeing a strategic alliance with Swiss firm Geoquip Marine.
The strategic alliance will see the firms offer geotechnical services in the greater North Sea and collaborate worldwide.
The new rig is a heave-compensated, offshore geotechnical deepwater drilling rig, built and commissioned in 2011. The rig is capable of operating in more than 600m water depth and drilling with a 850m combined water and borehole depth.
“The offshore geotechnical services market is undersupplied and DeepOcean, through its strategic alliance with Geoquip and its relationships with key customers worldwide, is well positioned to become a preferred geotechnical service provider and a viable alternative to the current segment leader in the greater North Sea”, says DeepOcean CEO Bart Heijermans.
“We have several vessels in our fleet of 14 owned and chartered vessels that can deploy the geotechnical drilling rig and we are targeting a number of opportunities in the offshore renewables and oil & gas sectors to get this important initiative started."
“DeepOcean is the ideal alliance partner”, says GeoQuip Marine AG CEO Andrew Wright. “the synergies between the two companies will result in being able to offer clients high quality seabed drilling and testing services particularly in deep water and in challenging environments such as the Arctic and will provide much needed global competition ”, Wright continues.