Subocean Expanding Into New Space

14 April 2009

An Aberdeenshire company specialising in subsea cable laying has expanded into new offices after taking on scores of new staff.

Subocean Group, which lays cables connecting offshore windfarms and other subsea installation projects, yesterday said it would take an extra 5,400sq ft of office space to accommodate its growing workforce. Last year, it added 75 posts, bringing the headcount to about 175. It expects to hire a further 50 people by the end of 2009.

The expansion comes on the back of £100 million worth of marine renewables contracts secured by Subocean in the last year. The group has taken on contracts to install subsea cables for Thanet Offshore Wind Development, a 100 turbine wind-farm off the north-east coast of Kent. Subocean also works with British Gas-owner Centrica.

Mike Daniel, co-founder and operations director of Subocean, said the company expected to continue growing by expanding into Europe.

He said: "Our contracts in marine renewables continue to increase and we will shortly be able to announce some new major contract wins for 2010 and 2011.

"To date, Subocean has only been addressing the UK market but we see an even bigger opportunity to capture a significant share of the business outwith the UK from 2011 when other European governments set their own renewable targets for 2020."

Subocean predicts its turnover for 2009 will be about £75m. In its last available accounts for the year to the end of 2007, the group had a turnover of £21m and made a pre-tax profit of £750,000.