Reef Subsea announced today that they have acquired the Norwegian company EXS Subsea that owns 80% in S3, Specialist Subsea Services, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Registered in 2007, S3 specialises in the provision of offshore survey, positioning and ROV services. Services include remote intervention, IMR, construction support, seabed mapping, geophysical surveys, geotechnical services, survey data presentation and data management. Historically based in Aberdeen, S3 serves the oil and gas, the offshore renewable energy and the marine facility sectors with their ROVS and survey teams.

The company’s assets include four advanced survey-capable work-class ROVs as well as a pool of survey equipment and their near shore vessels. S3 operates mainly in the North Sea, but has also completed extensive deepwater survey and ROV operations throughout the Mediterranean Sea, in water depths ranging up to 3,000m.

Mark Preece, Reef Subsea chief executive officer, said: “I am delighted to welcome S3 management and employees into the Reef Subsea family. Their management team is well known to the offshore subsea industry and also within our companies since we have successfully called upon their services for various projects in both oil & gas and renewable energy sectors. They represent an extremely good match in term of services to our existing business lines whilst allowing S3 to continue to grow.”

Reef Subsea is an international group providing cost-effective integrated subsea services to the oil and gas and renewables industries. Its specialised subsidiaries – Technocean, Scanmudring, Bluestone Offshore and S3 – provide operators and contractors with highly experienced personnel, key subsea technologies and construction support vessels. Reef Subsea serves its clients in the deepwater or demanding environments of the North Sea, South East Asia and North Atlantic areas. Reef Subsea is a 50/50 owned company of GC Rieber Shipping and HitecVision.