stringtranslate.com

Allseas

Allseas Group S.A. is a Dutch offshore contractor specialising in pipelay, heavy lift and subsea construction.[2] It was founded in 1985 by owner and president Edward Heerema, employs 4,000 people and operates worldwide.

The company is headquartered in Châtel-Saint-Denis, Switzerland. It also owns a subsidiary, Allseas Engineering B.V., based in the Netherlands with offices in Delft, Eindhoven and Enschede, which provide project management and engineering services to the group. The company also operates project and engineering offices out of Australia, Malaysia and the USA.[3]

Allseas operates a versatile fleet of specialised heavy-lift, pipelay and subsea installation vessels. The company has installed over 20,000 km of subsea pipeline worldwide using S-lay technology, with diameters ranging from 2 to 48 inches.[4] Allseas launched its first vessel Lorelay, the world's first pipelay vessel to operate on full dynamic positioning, in 1986.[5] It also owns Pioneering Spirit, the world's largest vessel, designed for the single-lift installation and removal of large oil and gas platforms and the installation of record-weight pipelines.

History

Allseas was founded in January 1985 by Edward Heerema, son of the late Pieter Schelte Heerema, founder of the Dutch offshore construction and installation company Heerema Marine Contractors. Offices subsequently opened in The Hague, Netherlands and Châtel-Saint-Denis, Switzerland.

The company spent its early days developing the concept of dynamically positioned (DP) subsea pipelay. Allseas acquired the former bulk carrier Natalie Bolten in 1985 and converted it for DP pipelay at the Boele shipyard in Bolnes, the Netherlands. The vessel was christened Lorelay in Rotterdam on 26 April 1986.[6] Lorelay immediately entered service and successfully executed her first pipelay contract, the 8-inch, 1.8-km Helder A-B pipeline, for Unocal in the Dutch sector of the North Sea.

In 2007, Allseas announced plans to build a twin-hulled platform installation/decommissioning and pipelay vessel. At 382 m long and 124 m wide, the vessel would be the largest ever built. It was to be named Pieter Schelte after the offshore pioneer Pieter Schelte Heerema, father of Allseas’ owner and founder Edward Heerema, however this naming caused controversy with some politicians and Jewish groups due to Pieter's previous service in the Waffen-SS during World War II, for which he was jailed for three years after the war.[7] In February 2015, Allseas stated that the ship would be renamed Pioneering Spirit.[8]

A criminal trial in the UK in 2016 revealed that Allseas was the victim of a multi-million-pound fraud. In 2011, they invested £73 million with investors led by Luis Nobre claiming to have links to the Vatican and Spanish nobility.[9][10]

In 2018, Allseas announced its intention to build an even larger version of Pioneering Spirit, named Amazing Grace, which is scheduled to be delivered in 2022.[11] However, in July 2020, Allseas announced that it would suspend the project indefinitely.[12]

Fleet

The company owns several vessels which are used for its offshore construction activities.

References

  1. ^ Allseas website: About company, visited 21 December 2019
  2. ^ "Allseas company". www.allseas.com.
  3. ^ "Allseas offices and yards". www.allseas.com.
  4. ^ "Pipeline installation". www.allseas.com.
  5. ^ "Converted DP Lorelay to install deepwater lines". Offshore Magazine. 1 January 1996.
  6. ^ "Swan revival means 1,200 jobs". www.independent.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2016-11-26.
  7. ^ "Dutch outcry over naming a giant ship after Nazi". www.usatoday.com.
  8. ^ "New name for Allseas' single-lift vessel" (PDF). www.allseas.com.
  9. ^ "City trader posed as a multi-millionaire with links to the Vatican in £73m fraud". www.telegraph.co.uk.
  10. ^ "Conman faces jail for posing as the Pope's banker in £73m fraud". www.standard.co.uk.
  11. ^ Karagiannopoulos, Lefteris (2018-02-07). "Switzerland's Allseas plans world's largest construction vessel". Reuters. Retrieved 2021-02-13.
  12. ^ Pieffers, Tobias (2020-07-22). "Plans for larger 'Pioneering Spirit' shelved indefinitely". projectcargojournal.com. Archived from the original on 2020-08-11. Retrieved 2021-02-13.
  13. ^ a b c "Pipe supply vessels". Retrieved 2020-04-10.
  14. ^ "Audacia | Allseas". Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  15. ^ "AUDACIA, Pipe Layer - Details and current position - IMO 9305130 MMSI 249117000 - VesselFinder". www.vesselfinder.com. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  16. ^ "AUDACIA (IMO 9305130, Pipe Layer) - Ship Details and Current Position | Vessel Tracking". www.vesseltracking.net. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  17. ^ "Fortitude | Allseas". Retrieved 2020-04-10.
  18. ^ "Allseas gets another Deepwater Construction Vessel – Heavy Lift News". www.heavyliftnews.com. Retrieved 2020-04-10.
  19. ^ "Allseas Sister Ships Reunited for North Sea Project - Oil and Gas News". www.oilandgaspeople.com. Retrieved 2020-04-10.
  20. ^ BalticShipping.com. "BalticShipping.com". www.balticshipping.com. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  21. ^ "Oceanic | Allseas". Retrieved 2020-04-10.
  22. ^ "Volstad construction vessel acquired by Allseas". Riviera Maritime Media. Retrieved 2020-04-10.
  23. ^ "Pioneering Spirit (Crane ship, pipelay) - Ships Particulars". offshore-fleet.com. Retrieved 2020-04-03.
  24. ^ "Pioneering Spirit sets new offshore lift record". Project Cargo Journal. Retrieved 2020-04-03.
  25. ^ "Solitaire - the Largest Pipe Laying Vessel in the World". www.marineinsight.com. 22 April 2012. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  26. ^ "Nord Stream Pipeline - Allseas Solitaire, the largest pipelay vessel in the world". www.wermac.org. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  27. ^ "Tog Mor | Allseas". Retrieved 2020-04-10.