Allseas Group S.A. is a Swiss-based offshore contractor specialising in pipelay, heavy lift and subsea construction. It was founded in 1985 by owner and president Edward Heerema, employs 4,000 people and operates worldwide. The company is headquartered in Châtel-Saint-Denis, Switzerland. It also owns a subsidiary, Allseas Engineering B.V., based in the

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with offices in Delft, Eindhoven and Enschede, which provides project management and engineering services to the group. The company also operates project and engineering offices out of Australia,

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and the

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Allseas operates a versatile fleet of specialised heavy-lift, pipelay and subsea installation vessels. The company has installed over 20,000 km of subsea pipeline worldwide using S-lay technology, with diameters ranging from 2 to 48 inches. Allseas launched its first vessel ''Lorelay'', the world's first pipelay vessel to operate on full dynamic positioning, in 1986. It also owns ''

Pioneering Spirit ''Pioneering Spirit'' (formerly ''Pieter Schelte'') is a catamaran crane vessel owned by the Switzerland-based Allseas Group designed for the single-lift installation and removal of large oil and gas platforms and the installation of record-w ...

'', the world's largest construction vessel, designed for the single-lift installation and removal of large oil and gas platforms and the installation of record-weight pipelines.

History

Allseas was founded in January 1985 by Edward Heerema, son of the late Pieter Schelte Heerema, founder of the Dutch offshore construction and installation company

Heerema Marine Contractors Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) is a contractor headquartered in the Netherlands most notable for operation of three of the largest crane vessels in the offshore industry. History Heerema Marine Contractors was formed in 1948 by Pieter Schelte ...

. Offices subsequently opened in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

and Châtel-Saint-Denis, Switzerland. The company spent its early days developing the concept of dynamically positioned (DP) subsea pipelay. Allseas acquired the former bulk carrier ''Natalie Bolten'' in 1985 and converted it for DP pipelay at the Boele shipyard in

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, the Netherlands. The vessel was christened ''Lorelay'' in Rotterdam on 26 April 1986. ''Lorelay'' immediately entered service and successfully executed her first pipelay contract, the 8-inch, 1.8-km Helder A-B pipeline, for

Unocal Union Oil Company of California, and its holding company Unocal Corporation, together known as Unocal was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headqu ...

in the Dutch sector of the North Sea. In 2007, Allseas announced plans to build a twin-hulled platform installation / decommissioning and pipelay vessel. At 382 m long and 124 m wide, the vessel would be the largest ever built. It was to be named ''Pieter Schelte'' after the offshore pioneer Pieter Schelte Heerema, father of Allseas’ owner and founder Edward Heerema, however this naming caused controversy with some politicians and Jewish groups due to Pieter's previous service in the

Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, for which he was jailed for three years after the war. In February 2015, Allseas stated that the ship would be renamed ''

''. A criminal trial in the UK in 2016 revealed that Allseas were victims of a multi-million pound fraud. In 2011, they invested £73 million with investors led by Luis Nobre claiming to have links to the Vatican and Spanish nobility. In 2018, Allseas announced its intention to build an even larger version of ''Pioneering Spirit'', named ''Amazing Grace'', which is scheduled to be delivered in 2022. However, in July 2020, Allseas announced that it would suspend the project indefinitely.

Fleet

The company owns several vessels which are used for its offshore construction activities.

References

{{refend Construction and civil engineering companies of Switzerland Privately held companies of Switzerland Oilfield services companies Swiss companies established in 1985 Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1985