ULO SYSTEMS
PROVIDING SOLUTIONS IN AN EVER CHANGING WORLD POWERED BY INSIDE OIL & GAS
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ULO SYSTEMS
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PROVIDING SOLUTIONS in an ever changing
UAE-based ULO Systems has more than half a century of experience providing structural grouting solutions to the global offshore oil and gas sector. With hundreds of projects completed, the company is looking to deepen ties with the offshore wind industry as more countries turn to alternative forms of power. Report by Andy Probert.
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stablished in the 1960s by a Swiss engineer and latterly owned by an industrial conglomerate in the United Arab Emirates, ULO Systems offers well-established solutions for the oil and gas industry: fabric formwork, flexible interlocking concrete mattresses, grouting, and reinforced precast concrete crossing supports. ULO’s fabric formwork is an effective subsea solution that helps stabilise pipelines and rectify free-standing ones. The company’s specially designed fabric allows the formwork to displace water and excess fluids during the curing phase, allowing the formwork to develop and maintain its full strength and shape, providing longterm support in every application. “The uniqueness of this is that we can inject cement into the formwork, and we
create a subsea support system on the seabed and shaped to enable the pipeline to sit on,” detailed ULO’s General Manager Gregory Sauvage. “That avoids issues in the long-run as pipelines become corroded or the seabed moves, and also helps avoid the collapse of pipelines.”
Continuous improvement Mr Sauvage said: “We have continuously improved and designed the product in many ways and it remains our core product. Our fabric formwork can be designed and developed for standard and non-standard applications.” Fabric formwork was initially focused on provision in the North Sea, but the company expanded in the Middle East in the 1990s, before it was acquired by the
Sharjah-based family-owned Bukhatir Group in the 2000s. ULO also manufactures purposeengineered and designed interlocking concrete mattresses, offering clients a cost-effective turnkey solution for pipeline protection, stabilization, crossing supports and scour prevention. “The mattresses are put on top of the pipeline instead of rocks, and can be built to meet exacting client requirements, providing a fully-engineered solution,” he added. The concrete mattresses can be shipped directly to a site in ‘kit-form’, reducing handling and transport costs. Mattresses are assembled and cast under the direct guidance of ULO supervision to ensure specified AQ/QC systems are maintained on every project.
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CEMSERVE CemServe is a trusted supplier of grouting manpower and services to ULO, supporting ULO projects globally since 2019. ULO’s expanding business and varied project forecast is an ideal environment in which CemServe can expand our knowledge base to better serve the global grouting industry. The professional relationship has gone from strength to strength, with CemServe and ULO working together to achieve challenging yet rewarding shared goals. We are excited to continue this close relationship and supporting ULO in the future! editorial mention
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Wind farms are becoming a very fast expanding area of interest for the business, and we are very excited at the potential in that sector
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ULO also provides grouting services that meet the most stringent project specifications for the offshore oil and gas, renewable energy, offshore wind and subsea sectors.
Wind farm potential With more than 700 contracts executed since 2001 alone, ULO’s team has been involved in some of the world’s largest and most challenging offshore projects, including compliant towers, deepwater platforms, gravity base structures, suction buckets, and subsea templates for TLPs, using both pressure-balanced and displacement grouting techniques. “Wind farms are becoming a very fast expanding area of interest for the business, and we are very excited at the potential in that sector,” noted Mr Sauvage. Still anchored in Sharjah, UAE, ULO Systems employs between 80 and 100 people depending on its seasonal offshore contract activities, while turnover is between $15 and $20 million.
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The company has a yard in Hamriyah Free Zone, near Sharjah, and storage facilities in Singapore, the Netherlands, Scotland, Louisiana in the US, and offices in the UK and the Netherlands. ULO receives exceptional support from the Bukhatir Group, one of the largest and most diversified business houses in the UAE. Its main interests straddle construction, education, information technology, real estate, shopping and retail, sports and leisure, and services. The geographical domain of the Bukhatir Group spans over half the world from North America to North Africa, West and South Asia. The group has an employee base of over 5,000, and its current annual turnover stands at $816 million. Mr Sauvage commented: “50% of ULO’s business is in the Middle East and across to Iran, 40% in Europe, and the rest in Asia, specifically India and Malaysia.” Since its founding, ULO has completed several milestone projects, including under base grouting at Ninian Central Platform,
one of the first concrete structures in the North Sea, utilising 13,000 tonnes of pumped cement. In 2012, ULO was involved in the huge grouting operation, 6,000 cubic tonnes of pumping grout, for a gravity base structure at Sakhalin, one of the world’s largest integrated oil and gas projects. The company also counts Saudi Aramco and Qatar Petroleum among its clients, with the latter’s vision for investing in expanding its LNG capacity by 40%. Mr Sauvage said that while ULO remained focused on serving the oil and gas sector, it was also becoming more involved in emerging and expanding offshore wind farm projects. “Offshore wind is quickly becoming a global industry and a sustainable form of renewable energy,” he said. “Throughout construction, operations and maintenance, extreme and challenging environmental conditions and operating parameters are constant issues faced by the whole industry.
“So our comprehensive range of offshore grouting solutions for every possible foundation type of turbine and substation foundation structures, bestin-class proprietary grouting equipment and DNV-approved operational methods can ensure the fast, efficient and safe grouting of windfarm foundations.” He added: “The foundations of wind turbines must withstand extreme stress from water and wind impact. Our grouting solutions meet and exceed requirements, and we have worked on some of the world’s largest offshore construction projects.”
New innovations In 2020, the company achieved several significant milestones, including working on the 950 MW Moray East Offshore Wind Farm in Scotland, where ULO had to grout 103 substructures over six months. Mr Sauvage said the project featured ULO Systems’ new-generation recirculating jet mixer (RJM) and high-capacity pump to reduce grouting time significantly.
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The RJM can enable grouting up to 75% faster than using traditional mixers. The recirculating jet mixer has a mixing and pumping capacity of up to 120 metres cubed per hour. It can grout and flush two separate annuli via two holding tanks and water manifolds on one of the skids, while the second skid houses the pumps. The hardware also features two highercapacity recirculating jet mixers on a single skid, facilitating higher capacities and thicker mixes. “Two jets feed one mixer drum, creating a much more turbulent vortex for better colloidal dispersion of solids, resulting in a grout that will last as long as the asset’s lifecycle,” explained Mr Sauvage. “This new equipment enables our highly-trained personnel to complete grouting work at a pace never before seen.” 2018 saw the company launch its DNVapproved licensed applicator status with BASF, which took six years to complete. It now holds seven 100-tonne, DNV accredited new silos for Europe, which sit with its European office, also opened in 2018 in the Netherlands, called ULO EU BV, offering the ability to increase trade locally. 7
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In 2019, ULO Systems added a new core activity to its existing business line, designing and manufacturing subsea air lift bags used in many different industries, ranging from the salvage and recovery of vessels to offshore construction. These bags are designed to achieve a safety factor of 6:1 per international standards. In Bangladesh, the company completed a project for a nuclear power station on the $2.2 billion Roopur Nuclear Project. Once met, the plant will become Bangladesh’s first atomic energy facility, making Bangladesh the third South Asian country after India and Pakistan to harness atomic energy for the country’s power requirements.
Eyes wide open For 2021, Mr Sauvage said the company is planning to invest in and build another RJM with more built-in redundancy and more continuous grout applications. “With the amount of offshore project activities happening in Europe, the US and Asia, ULO needs to have this equipment available,” he outlined. “We believe there is incredible potential in the windfarm sector, such as in
Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan, coming forward in the next few years, and from 2024 there will be many opportunities as the US begins to fast track its renewables projects.” Mr Sauvage said grouting was a niche market, but as a leader in the Middle East and one of the top three contractors in Europe and globally, the company was alert to meeting any challenges head-on by remaining agile, efficient and localised to clients. “To succeed in our sector, you need to maintain operational excellence with trained staff, continue R&D in our equipment innovations, and we always carry
out lessons learned after each project so that we can improve going into the next one.” Looking at the industry, he said: “We are seeing and understand the early global energy transition is underway. ULO Systems needs to stay on top across the various sectors that it’s in, look at and invest in new products, and seek to offer better stabilisation solutions.” He concluded: “We are going into these fundamental changes with our eyes wide open. We realise we need to be agile and nimble, seek to be global but remain local to the client. Certainly, for ULO Systems, exciting times are ahead.” n ULO Systems
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ulosystems.com +971 6 5261636 enquiries@ulosystems.com