Page 21: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 2024)

ROB LANGFORD, VP, GLOBAL OFFSHORE WIND ob Langford has worked in the offshore industry ABS. “We are growing and evolving our services across all for more than three decades, ‘cutting his teeth’ offshore infrastructure along with our continued support to the in a UK design ? rm working in the North Sea marine industry,” said Langford. “We continue to hire key in- oil and gas platforms, the holy grail of rigorous dividuals and partner to provide best-in-class solutions.”

R conditions in offshore energy production. From Also – like most companies in the maritime and offshore that start he – like most other burgeoning leaders in the sector sectors – today it is not possible for ABS to put a de? nitive – became ‘mobile and global’, working with SBM in the ? oat- number on ‘how fast, how far’ this business will grow. “It is ing offshore world with FPSOs and the turret business, then dif? cult to provide quantitative ? gures as this is driven by the moving to New Orleans to work on Gulf of Mexico deepwater developers and approval regime,” said Langford. “However, projects with Shell. Eventually he settled in Houston, working we are gung ho about making this happen, and we are con? - with engineering and advisory/EPC companies for offshore dent that the offshore wind business will grow year-on-year.” developments and another stint at SBM, which entailed proj- While there are plentiful regulatory and environmental hur- ect work globally. dles, they are not alone.

About ? ve years ago he made the switch over to offshore “One of the main risks I see is the onshore infrastructure to wind, working for Worley as senior director of offshore wind, support fabrication, staging, O&M along with grid connectiv- and today he ? nds himself at ABS as the VP of Global Off- ity and PPA’s,” said Langford, noting that vessels to support shore Wind, a pivotal cog in helping to facilitate this emerging installations are proving problematic, too.

market globally. From the government side, he sees a need for further sup- port – incentives and subsidies – to develop ports and proj-

Roadblocks on the Wind Path ects. “We need to help educate the local communities, help-

Like most organizations in the maritime and offshore sec- ing them [especially government representatives] to better tors, renewable energy and sustainability are a focus aread for understand what we’re trying to achieve,” said Langford. www.marinelink.com 21

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