DeepOcean Expands Subsea Market Scope with Shelf Subsea Acquisition
May 22, 2025
Ocean services provider DeepOcean has acquired Shelf Subsea, creating a ‘global subsea services player’ with an extensive portfolio of solutions, now also covering the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions.
DeepOcean has acquired 100% of the shares in Shelf Subsea, expanding its footprint into Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. The combined group will have approximately 1,800 employees and generate more than $1 billion in revenue.
Shelf Subsea will be integrated into DeepOcean and will form the company’s business region, DeepOcean APAC. The parties have agreed not to disclose the financial details of the transaction.
The acquisition enables global expansion of DeepOcean’s operating model founded on engineering, project management, proprietary technology, subsea tool pool, ROV’s and access to a versatile subsea fleet.
The subsea markets in APAC and the Middle East are characterized by attractive fundamentals with growing demand for subsea IMR (Inspection, maintenance and repair) and recycling services, and a growing offshore wind market.
Similar to DeepOcean, Shelf Subsea offers engineering and project management for subsea construction and installation, subsea survey and positioning services, subsea IMR services, as well as removal and recycling of subsea assets.
Shelf Subsea is headquartered in Australia, with further offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Saudi Arabia. The company has approximately 200 employees.
It currently operates a fleet of three chartered multipurpose dive support vessels, multiple ROVs, various subsea installation equipment, plus a number of diving systems.
“DeepOcean and Shelf Subsea offer similar services, but have distinct geographical strongholds that complement each other. When combined, we will provide customers worldwide with access to a comprehensive pool of expertise and capabilities.
“We look forward to combining our leading technology and innovative solutions with Shelf Subsea’s operations in the APAC region, as well as gaining valuable learnings from their leading project model. We are very impressed by the customer relations built up by the management of Shelf Subsea,” said Øyvind Mikaelsen, CEO of DeepOcean.
