teaming up
Houston company closes offshore JV deal to drive innovation, efficiency in subsea production
A new joint venture with co-headquarters in Houston will explore opportunities in the market for subsea systems that tap into offshore energy reserves.
The business, called OneSubsea, is a joint venture of Houston-based energy technology company SLB (Schlumberger), Norwegian energy engineering company Aker Solutions, and Luxembourg-based energy engineering company Subsea7. SLB holds a 70 percent stake in OneSubsea, with Aker’s share at 20 percent and Subsea7’s share at 10 percent.
The financial foundation of the joint venture is a combination of $700.5 million in stock, cash, and a promissory note. In addition, SLB and Aker folded their subsea businesses into the joint venture, which was announced in 2022.
“As demand grows for cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable energy,” the joint venture says, “a large portion of the corresponding supply increase will come from offshore developments resulting in strong deepwater activity … and the need for innovative subsea solutions.”
OneSubsea is based in Oslo, Norway, and Houston.
As Aker explains, a subsea system “provides a way to produce hydrocarbons from areas not economically or easily developed by the use of an offshore platform.” The system’s ocean-floor components are connected to subsea pipelines, riser systems, and other equipment.
Hydrocarbons are the key components of oil and natural gas.
“The offshore market is demonstrating a sustained resurgence as operators across the world look to accelerate development cycle times and increase the productivity of their offshore assets,” says Olivier Le Peuch, CEO of SLB.
Mads Hjelmeland is the newly appointed CEO of OneSubsea, which employs about 11,000 people around the world.
“OneSubsea’s extensive technology portfolio and engineering expertise enable us to address future market trends and needs at a unique scale. In doing so, we aim to fulfil our purpose of expanding the frontiers of subsea to drive a sustainable energy future,” says Hjelmeland, who is based in Houston.
Hjelmeland’s tenure with the previous iteration of OneSubsea began in 2014. That’s a year after SLB and Cameron, a supplier of equipment, systems and services for the oil and gas industry, formed a joint venture known as OneSubsea to serve the subsea oil and gas market. SLB owned a 40 percent stake in OneSubsea, and Cameron owned a 60 percent stake.
To establish OneSubsea, Cameron contributed its subsea business, and SLB pitched in a $600 million payment to Cameron along with several business units.
In 2016, SLB acquired Cameron in a cash-and-stock deal initially valued at $14.8 billion. OneSubsea then became a subsidiary of SLB, and that subsidiary is now part of the newly reconfigured OneSubsea.
Pieremanuele Canepa, Robert Welch assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH, is leading a research project that can change the effectiveness of sodium-ion batteries. Photo courtesy of UH