The International Resource Journal: Riise Underwater Engineering Riise Underwater Engineering ================================================================================ admin on 13 November, 2009 04:09:00 Riise Underwater Engineering (RUE) is an established provider of onshore and offshore subsea engineering, Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) and diving services. Today the Norwegian company works mostly in the North Sea and West Africa and has 15 years of experience to draw on. IRJ looks back over the growth of RUE and catches up on all of the company’s exciting news from October. The History of RUE RUE was founded in 1993 by Stein-Inge Riise, who remains the company’s inshore department Operating Manager today. “Back then there were only three employees in the company,” Per-Allan Røsand, CEO says. “Now we’re up to 25 full-time permanent employees, 150 including all of the high-end divers and ROV pilots. In terms of revenue, in 2006 the company was standing at NOK 26 million and in 2008 it was NOK 250 million. So, we have ten times the employees and revenue.” In 2006 RUE brought in a private equity company. “They were interested in RUE, and they actually funded half of our company which enabled us to go out and order two new diving vessels, so we have two new builds coming in,” Røsand explains. “The first will be delivered in mid-November this year, and the second will be delivered summer next year. These two vessels are specially designed according to our own design specifications for the purpose of operating subsea operations. We’re building both of these on speculations.” The company has been working in West Africa since 2005 and continues to do so very successfully today. “We have been working for various companies there including Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil,” Røsand says. Add to that Statoil, Stolt Comex Seaway, Sub Sea Dolphin and the Norwegian Institute for Water Research to name a few, and it is clear that RUE has had more than its share of exciting projects. In addition to working in West Africa, RUE is involved in some interesting work a little closer to home. “We have two departments (inshore and offshore) working in subsea engineering. The inshore department is involved in emergency oil recovery and in carrying out diving operations along the coastline of Norway and wider Scandinavia,” Røsand explains. The inshore department entered into an seven year frame agreement with Statoil back in 2000. The scope was to carry out all the air diving for them along the inshore/nearshore in Norway. In 2007, the agreement was renewed with another five plus two times two years, a total of nine years. So, since 2000, we have carried out all of the air diving along the coastline of Norway for the terminals and so on.” The offshore department expanded into Nigeria in 2005, and so far we have been working for Shell and others in the offshore market in West Africa. In 2008, RUE won the Contractor Safety Award, Best Newcomer of the year at ExxonMobil’s two day conference in Lagos, Nigeria. “We had a one year pipeline project for them in which we carried out 1,100 DP dives without any accidents,” Røsand says. “We’re really proud of this whole team and the huge effort they have made.” RUE today On September 30, RUE hit industry newswires worldwide when the company landed a five-month Inspection, Maintenance and Repair (IMR) contract with Shell in Nigeria. This is a joint partnership with OMAK Maritime Ltd and an exciting addition to RUE’s weighty portfolio history. “The contract scope of work includes, but is not limited to underwater(air diving) and topside IMR work on three SBM loading buoys in Bonny and two SBM loading buoys in Forcados, included in scope of work is also IMR work on the two areas central loading platforms,” RUE’s press release states. “The work commenced September 3 with MPSV DP2 Viking Forcados. The vessel has been on bare boat to RUE since January 2009 and is specialized to undertake this kind of underwater and topside IMR and refit operations. Viking Forcados will be available for other clients from February 2010.” In 2008, RUE began to look at other parts of the world in which the company could grow. “We decided to move to Asia Pacific and the Middle East, and then we came to an agreement with a local company in India which is involved in logistics. This company is called Chandra Group, and we’re now in the process of establishing our own subsidiary in India alongside our partnership with that company,” Røsand says. “We have employed our first RUE employee there who joined us on August 1st 2009 so he has already begun working for us there. We hold a strong belief in the potential of India and other areas in South-East Asia,” he continues. Røsand explains that the nature of contracting in Norway has spurred RUE’s interest in working further afield. “In Norway, the contract strategy between the oil companies is based upon long-term frame agreement, and that market is more-or-less covered,” he says. “If we want to go into that market, we’ll have to be a sub-contractor. Our strategy is to move up the food chain and have contracts directly with the oil companies.” With two new vessels being built, a host of contractual history completed and this latest joint venture IMR contract underway, RUE is continuing to grow and shows no signs of slowing. “How big we’ll end up being, we don’t know. That depends on the contracts that we’re getting in the future,” Røsand says. “Our two new vessel builds this year and next year should ensure that we’re going in the right direction. I hope that next year we have minimum three vessels in operation.” If any company is capable of such consistent and rapid growth it’s RUE.