CRP Subsea is a specialist manufacturer of high-quality protective ancillaries and buoyancy housing for subsea cabling and piping to the global offshore oil, gas and wind energy sectors. With the company’s recent acquisition and greater involvement in the renewables industry, CRP Subsea is wellpositioned to forge ahead and reap the opportunities, according to Managing Director John Drury. Profile by Andy Probert.
As a mainstay of the traditional energy industry for over 4 decades, CRP Subsea has been reaping the enormous potential offered by diversifying its product range into the renewables sector.
“Buoyancy in name and buoyant in nature is how we are at CRP Subsea,” reflected John Drury, Managing Director. His assertion neatly sums up CRP Subsea’s family of products and the prevailing attitude of its workforce at its Skelmersdale, UK, facility.
The business has been further bolstered following its acquisition by Gloucester’s AIS, so uniting two industry leaders into a global company that delivers multiple subsea solutions to protect clients’ assets.
Formidable force as one
It offers a new chapter in CRP Subsea’s evolution as a polymer and syntactic foambased product leader. Innovations such as buoyancy, floats and bend protection from CRP Subsea perfectly complement and expand AIS’ subsea cable protection, buoyancy modules and insulation product offerings.
“AIS and CRP Subsea share the same DNA as forward-thinking, innovative companies,” said Mr Drury, “and being stronger together significantly boosts our ability to meet the global needs of the energy industry.
“Considerable growth is expected in the offshore energy market. The acquisition
ensures both companies will capitalise on the current oil and gas cycle, pursue the energy transition with combined resources, and be better positioned to ensure clients access to a wider range of subsea solutions.”
Since its inception in 1978, CRP Subsea has specialised in large-scale polymer and composite components, offering products designed for project-specific needs. It first supplied polymer lifebuoys for ports and harbours.
Given that the subsea environment entails a challenging combination of conditions, CRP Subsea advanced the technology to provide high-integrity solutions to protect infrastructure, such as subsea pipelines, umbilicals and cables in the oil and gas industry. From dynamic fatigue bend
protec tion of safety-critical flexible risers, damping of vortex-induced vibration to limit riser fatigue, or over-bending prevention solutions of cables, CRP Subsea has an unrivalled track record.
It supplied the first dynamic bending stiffeners in 1996, since then over 1,500 have been installed without any in-service failures. Later, as part of Trelleborg Offshore, CRP Subsea developed the world’s first rotating buckle mitigation buoyancy innovation and buoyancy modules with integrated smart sensor technology.
Change in the wind
Following a management buyout – and rebranded as CRP Subsea in 2021 – the company diversified its offerings to the offshore wind sector, in which it first
engaged in 2015. Increased synergy with AIS led to CRP Subsea joining its group in November 2022.
AIS employs over 600 people globally, including 220 people at CRP Subsea’s 25,000sqm Skelmersdale site, which has deepwater testing facilities with depths to 7,000m for product trials. It has invested heavily in a new precision-engineered manufacturing cell to support increased manufacturing demand and in a state-ofthe-art semi-automated production line for its NjordGuard cable protection system.
NjordGuard is designed and developed to protect offshore wind farm power cables in both monopile and J-tube applications. NjordGuard can be installed, removed, and reused for wind turbine generators and offshore substation platforms without Remote Operated Vehicles or diver intervention, so improving safety and reducing installation complexity.
CRP Subsea’s recent project wins have included supplying 1,600m of TriStrakes ® (Vortex-Induced Vibration [VIV] strakes) in various sizes for an offshore gas development in China. It has provided a client, Seaway 7, with 140 NjordGuard cable protection systems and bellmouths for offshore wind farms off the west coast of Taiwan.
The company has also been awarded several deepwater contracts to provide Distributed Buoyancy Modules in Australia, West Africa, China and South America to reduce the risk of pipeline failure. Additionally, it has supplied three types
of ancillary cable products to protect significant cable sections along the west cable route for the Crete to Peloponnese interconnection project, providing Crete with an electricity interconnection from mainland Greece.
“The majority of our business is due to repeat custom,” said Mr Drury. “Trust, reliability, delivering on promises and good communication help build client relationships. Clients can have multiple contracts globally at any one time, and CRP Subsea is an integral part of their supply chain.”
Floating ambitions
I n oil and gas, CRP Subsea is noted for buoyancy uplift products to support cables and pipes or polyurethane protection solutions for over-bending, abrasion or impact challenges in shallow or deepsea environments.
“As pipes advance from an oil or gas platform to the seabed,” Mr Drury
explained, “CRP Subsea saw similar technical challenges in offshore wind farms to protect cables going from turbine to turbine and back to shore.
“The company has successfully transferred its knowledge, experience, materia l science, product design and manufacturing techniques from protecting subsea oil and gas infrastructure to protecting power cables from a turbine’s foundation to the seabed in the renewables sector.
“There are differences in projects and requirements, but they are close to our core competencies. CRP Subsea can take all the variables to design and configure a tailored, fully optimised product to do the job.”
Mr Drury added: “Renewables now represent 20% of our revenue compared to nothing seven years ago. And that pipeline of offshore wind projects will continue growing into the future. 2023
will be a busier year for us than 2022, and 2024 promises to be an even better year with projects maturing in the US, China, Taiwan, Brazil, China and Australia.”
N ow a well-renowned name in the global fixed foundation wind farms sector in Europe, Asia and North America, the £50-million turnover division is looking to scale up its 80% exports side further in the floating offshore wind farm sector.
“As the sector begins to run out of real estate in shallow waters for fixed foundations, the floating industry will come on strong,” Mr Drury concluded. “Offshore wind is going the same way
as oil and gas into deeper waters and will require a broader range of protection and support products. Fixed wind farm projects are maturing, but growth globally of floating wind farm projects is projected to be very steep.
“CRP Subsea is well positioned to offer solutions to the emerging floating renewables niche. We are engaged on much larger commercial-scale projects and have several products under development enabling us to scale up as the floating wind farm sector expands. Underpinned by AIS, CRP Subsea is embarking on exciting times.” n
