Page 14: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Jul/Aug 2021)

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PROFILE NEIL GORDON

Subsea UK “Tings are changing; we’ve been through a pandemic and lockdown, and the world looks kind of diferent as we come out of hibernation. (In addition to the emergence of ofshore wind) there are things like carbon capture and utilization and storage, hydrogen production, and many other opportunities.” – Neil Gordon,

Chief Executive at Subsea UK challenges create opportunities as operators take a microscope sea UK and additional entities in Scotland and the UK, The to their operating costs, particularly looking at the balance Global Underwater Hub is aiming to harness all that the sub- between capital-intensive topside versus subsea developments. sea industry has to offer and leverage it toward future oppor- “Look at subsea developments, for example, and in the tunities. “So the challenge was, a few years back, we looked at

North Sea, where there were a lot of subsea tiebacks to exist- Subsea UK, which had done a great job up until then, but the ing infrastructure,” subsea technologies that have enabled as- future was starting to look slightly different,” said Gordon. sets that were perhaps designed for only 20 years to have their ‘Slightly different’ includes the impact of COVID. “Things life extended well past 40 years. are changing; we’ve been through a pandemic and lockdown, and the world looks kind of different as we come out of hiber-

Tapping the $3 Trillion Blue Economy nation. (In addition to the emergence of offshore wind) there

The opportunity now – and hence the creation of The are things like carbon capture and utilization and storage, hy-

Global Underwater Hub – is to leverage all of this accrued drogen production, and many other opportunities.” subsea expertise, much of it born in the traditional offshore oil Cumulatively it is perhaps best described as taking a bigger and gas environment, and fnd new ‘homes’ for it in alternate piece of the ‘blue economy’ which encompasses all aspects to and emerging offshore industries, from defense to aquaculture do with the ocean, driven by the recent Organization for Eco- to the burgeoning offshore wind market, particularly with the nomic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report that need to chart, understand and build on the seafoor, as well as projects the blue economy is set to grow to about $3 trillion the more recent emergence and promising future of ‘foating by 2030. “Now that’s a massive growth,” said Gordon, noting wind’ that share many similarities to offshore oil and gas. that $1T of that pie are sectors where Subsea UK has already

In motion for a few years, drawing on the resources of Sub- or has targeted to work.

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