• Marine

Diving into the future

The acquisition of subsea specialist company, HSSE, enhances the offshore profile and capabilities for the James Fisher group

Through the recent acquisition of Hughes Sub-Surface Engineering (HSSE) the James Fisher group has significantly enhanced its subsea activities, which means it can offer a comprehensive portfolio of services in the oil, gas, marine, renewables, power generation and marine civil engineering sectors. 

Based in Liverpool (with offices in Surrey and Aberdeen) HSSE has grown over the last ten years from a one-man specialist diving band to the development of an extensive subsea engineering capability with an array of specialised equipment. It is now one of the UK's leading diving and ROV companies. 

HSSE's managing director, Ian Hughes says;

"This acquisition is going to be great for both HSSE and also James Fisher, together we can offer a broad range of services (including offshore cable installation teams) in one complete package which puts us in a very strong position to support customers involved in complex offshore and subsea projects."

As well as working closely with James Fisher on the Galloper project providing UXO support and emergency response technicians, HSSE has had a number of recent success stories:

• Back in October 2015, HSSE was contracted to relocate seabed boulders at Rampion Offshore Wind Farm which were littering the seabed and hampering offshore operations. The 11 month process, which involved 263 ROV operations to shift 10,516 boulders was completed in September 2016. Chris Tomlinson, E.ON development manager for Rampion comments, 'the boulder clearance operations helped to ensure that the construction phase of the wind far, stayed on schedule, and the HSSE team did a great job and was professional throughout,  delivering the project to a high standard of safety. '
• Earlier this year the team completed a project for Tetney Monobuoy pipeline in the Humber estuary which involved subsea hose removal and pipe installation, confined space diving and diving support. HSSE undertook full project management of the subsea works, often in challenging environments such as strong currents, inclement weather and black water, all to very tight project deadlines
• HSSE was also awarded the European subsea inspection framework for three of Dong Energy's wind farms off the coast of Germany and Denmark. The project was completed before deadline and exceeded client expectations.