Aker: a Norwegian success story

Founded as Akers Mekaniske Verksted, a small mechanical workshop on the Aker River in Oslo in 1841, it grew as a mechanical and marine engineering business through the nineteenth century. In the heyday of the steam engine, the company worked across sectors including timber, wood and pulp, coal, hydropower, fisheries and shipping.

The discovery of North Sea oil and gas in the 1960s necessitated a change in focus and Aker soon moved into rig development, with its “Ocean Viking” rig used to discover Norway’s first oil field in 1969. Aker became a driving force in developing safe and reliable solutions for deepwater fields and difficult reservoirs.

In 2015, the now renamed Aker Solutions delivered the world’s first subsea gas compression system for a field about 200km off the coast in the Norwegian Sea, which revolutionized offshore gas production by cutting costs and improving safety, with fully-fledged production and processing systems on the ocean floor.

OneSubsea: a legacy of partnership

The Schlumberger brothers began trading at their office on rue Fabert in Paris in the 1920, and as the rapidly growing company entered the 1960s its growing expertise in deep-sea drilling helped map the sea floor for a new generation of explorers and entrepreneurs. 

In 2013, OneSubsea was born when SLB and Cameron formed a new organization to focus on subsea production and recovery. This partnership approach to the industry was widened in 2015 when OneSubsea, Helix and SLB formed the Subsea Services Alliance to optimize the value chain for well intervention systems. OneSubsea also established the Subsea Integration Alliance with Subsea7, which together have delivered many successful subsea EPCI projects around the globe.

Subsea7 : a multifaceted legacy

Although it was created in 2002 as a joint venture between DSND and Halliburton Subsea, Subsea7 can trace its roots to more than 25 legacy companies. Since the 1950s these organizations have evolved and overcome a succession of daunting subsea and marine challenges and made huge and lasting contributions to subsea expertise and development.

In 2004, DSND acquired Halliburton’s stake and floated the business on the Oslo Stock Exchange. In 2011, Subsea7 Inc combined with Acergy SA to form Subsea7 SA.