Greatship Subsea Solutions and Gregg Marine form strategic alliance

Company News - August 17, 2011

Greatship Subsea Solutions (Australia, Singapore, India) and Gregg Marine Inc (US) have formed a strategic alliance to offer fully integrated subsea geotechnical site investigation services on a global basis.

By combining Greatship’s fleet of new offshore support vessels, experience in marine operations, and subsea execution capability with Gregg Marine’s seabed drilling and site investigation technologies, the new venture plans to offer comprehensive solutions in from the shallow to ultra-deep water environments.

These solutions will include:

A DP2 Geotechnical Drill Ship with Seafloor Drill capable of coring and sampling at 3000m water depth, 150m below mudline with a sample size ranging from NQ to PQ.
A DP2 geotechnical site investigation vessel mounted with a Deep Water CPT spread, 3000 MSW shallow core drill, and other sampling and site investigation tools.

In addition, following successful sea trials offshore western Canada last month, the first Gregg Seafloor Drill system has been contracted for an offshore site investigation program in Asia commencing in September, 2011. Production planning of a second Gregg Seafloor Drill is already underway with delivery expected in mid-2012.

“It’s been a challenging road to bring Gregg Drilling’s experience in surface-based drilling successfully onto the seabed in deep water,” said Chuck Drake, Gregg’s Director of Offshore Systems.

“But the recognized health, safety, environmental, and productivity benefits of seabed systems compared to traditional drill-ships has made it well worth the effort. We look forward to sharing these advantages with clients globally aboard world-class Greatship vessels.”

“Together with Gregg Marine, we are excited about offering our clients an integrated solution to their subsea geotechnical site investigation requirements," said Chris Eastwell, Greatship Subsea Solutions Australia’s Managing Director.

“The combination of our modern DP2 vessels and Gregg Marine’s subsea drills will allow us to operate safely even in deep water areas and high sea states which will result in less downtime and increased productivity and therefore cost savings for our clients”.