Bill Morrice’s remit as a managing director is to lead Technip’s huge presence in the UK, which also embraces all of Denmark and West of Ireland.
His responsibilities also cover marine offshore services globally, that is, manage the company’s large fleet of specialist vessels. And he has a remit over technology R&D based in the Granite City, in particular rigid pipeline-related.
“Aberdeen is primarily about winning and doing subsea projects and activity,” says Morrice, who is currently steering the business through a growth spurt.
“There’s been a subsea resurgence in the North Sea, in particular West of Shetland. It has marked the return of large-scale subsea projects, in some cases doubling and tripling in value terms against what was the norm five to ten years ago.
“Projects are larger, more complex and technically challenging and they require bigger assets to install. Manifolds are bigger, pipelines are bigger and they require better insulation. That invariably means pipe-in-pipe, which is a core strength of ours and includes low energy trace heating.”
Technip has a 10-plus years history of doing pipe-in-pipe projects worldwide . . . now in excess of 30 or 40 projects . . . and is demand in the North Sea, both UK and Norwegian sectors.
The way the offshore business has evolved increasingly demands contractors with significant financial muscle, whether the projects are operated by majors, independents or minnows (baby companies).
The last category can be especially hard to handle.
“For start-ups the risk of getting their project wrong and not delivering production on time and budget is significant for these guys,” says Morrice.
“You might think they would be looking for the cheapest deal from contractors. But what is more important is that they get the lowest risk solution, which invariably means using the larger contractor with a lot of experience and a strong track record of reliably delivering projects.”
Morrice said that Valiant’s Causeway development was a case in point.
“By default, not design, we were the one with the largest capability in the room so we naturally assumed that position. I think there will be more of that in the future.”
The idea of taking financial risk through equity in a project was dismissed as premier subsea contractors like Technip have the pick of an increasingly busy market.
“There may have been examples of that in the past,” says Morrice. “But we don’t often get asked. We explore it on occasion; however, I don’t think we’ve been in the situation where we’ve actually provided that type of support.
“There is a fantastic array of opportunities out there and I think it is really critical that we build the right portfolio of work and projects . . . one that makes good use of all the services that we provide.
“It would be all too easy to just go down the deepwater route West of Shetland when there’s a broader opportunity right across the North Sea in terms of traditional shelf projects. It’s important that we’re involved in all of that.”
When Morrice took the job as MD, he embarked on significant re-outward-focused organisation to enable the Aberdeen-based resource . . . people (currently more than 1,100 onshore), the ships and all the subsea kit . . . to better respond to the market.
Three business streams emerged . . . deepwater west of the UK and Ireland; shelf development work, which is the engine of the business: and continuing to develop Technip’s inspection, repair and maintenance (IRM), with an eye on building a position in the emerging decommissioning market.
Morrice: “We’re still the leading player in IRM, something that tends to get forgotten about. There is the tendency out there for people to think Technip . . . big subsea contractor that it is . . . won’t be interested in the small projects.
“But those small projects are crucially important as they provide the flexibility to sustain fleet utilisation. It also gives you an advantage with customers when talking about future projects.
“We’re going to stay very much involved in life-of-field. We’re strengthening that element of the business and growing the backlog on that front.”
However, Morrice would not talk about the size of Technip’s North Sea backlog, offering only an overall group figure (about 10billion euros).
But he would talk about vessel distribution and this clearly flags the huge importance of the North Sea.
“We have 33 vessels that we control though we could utilise considerably more than that at any given time. Currently, we have around 12 vessels in the UK sector. Not all of those are counted into the 33 as some are short-term charters.
“Northwest Europe accounts for a greater proportion of the business than several years ago. It’s a measure of how the North Sea market has grown lately.”
So what are the three top greenfield projects for Technip in the North Sea?
“Golden Eagle (Nexen), Greater Stellar (Ithaca) and Alder (Chevron),” comes the response. “These are all sizeable projects and significantly greater in value and complexity than similar projects would have been three to five years ago.”
As for brownfield the flagship is redevelopment of Schiehallion . . . now Quad 204. This is a significant scope of work over 3.5-4 years, and the contract win is attributed to the considerable amount of IRM work conducted by the company in and around Schiehallion.
But Morrice is in no doubt that the many step-out projects that characterise the North Sea today are also very important bread and butter business.
He is also clear that the UK Atlantic Frontier is coming of age.
“There are a number of subsea opportunities West of Shetland, some of which may take 10-15 years to come to fruition, but the potential out there is significant.
“Clair Ridge, Laggan-Tormore and the Schiehallion redevelopment are just the start. There is of course Rosebank (Chevron) which is under commercial tender currently; and there are others.
“For us Quad 204 was crucially important . . . to land us a foundation for our WoS aspirations. We had undertaken lots of operations-related replacement work BP on Schiehallion though we didn’t do any of the original installation work.
“Our presence WoS has been very much Opex rather than Capex-based and we wanted to turn that around. All that work positioned us well for Quad 204.”
“We could have just focused on an element of the work and restricted the size of the challenge. But we decided to try and secure all of it as it would give us that foundation for the future.”
Morrice agreed that financial markets would expect a company of Technip’s stature to be taking on larger more complex jobs for obvious financial reasons.
However, he said the decision to chase Quad 204 … the largest subsea project in northwest Europe market for some time … was not taken lightly, despite similar scale projects having been undertaken in West Africa and Brazil.
Turning to Chevron’s large Rosebank project, which is another exciting opportunity for subsea contractors with muscle, Morrice reveals: “We’re right in the midst of it, along with our competition.
“There are two elements to the subsea scope. There’s the supply of flexible pipe and then the installation contract. It’s an all-flexibles development but tendered as two contracts.
“Supply has been tendered but not the installation package, nor will it be until late October. Supply tenders have been submitted and are now in the clarification stage.”
Whilst it is thought that the “usual suspects” are tendering Rosebank, competition in the subsea construction and IRM space is growing, with new names appearing on the global stage. But Morrice believes Technip has an edge.
“From a deepwater standpoint, I think the arrival of Ocean Installer, Ceona and so-forth is being more keenly felt in Norway than the UK at the moment,” he says.
“The diving capability is still key to the UKCS projects. Norway is doing more diving that’s for sure and our Skandi Arctic vessel is utilised over there fairly heavily. Many Norwegian projects are still undertaken on a diverless basis.
“In the UK sector you can count on one hand how many projects are being undertaken with a diverless approach. Divers remain very key to UKCS projects. That will act as a barrier to entry for some of the new or refreshed players.
“McDermott commented recently that it was surprised as to just how significant divers remain on the UKCS. But basically diving has never gone away; it’s always been a part of the UK North Sea.”
Technip still has the (dive-equpped) Arctic, Orelia and Achiever and Well Servicer plying their trade in the North Sea.
The Well Servicer on occasion goes overseas to do some international work and has, for example, spent a lot of time in Israel (Tamar gas development) and is currently in Canada working on the White Rose extension project.
Morrice expects her to be back at the tail end of the year and continue to work in the North Sea from a diving standpoint.
“Orelia, Achiever and Arctic continue to work this market, with the Arctic providing the dive capability in Norway. Indeed Orelia remains a unique asset, providing a really efficient means of carrying our subsea tiebacks,” he says.
“We’re exploring fleet regeneration from that standpoint and are in the midst of that at the moment.
“Obviously we have two younger and two older assets in the fleet right now; so the two older ones are being looked at in terms of replacement.
“We have two dive systems currently being built at Divex. Both are twin-bell, one is 24-man, the other 18-man, and both are twin hyperbaric lifeboat.
“But we’ve yet to commit to the hulls associated with those systems. The vessels also have to take account of the subsea market’s evolution where the boats required will be larger and highly flexible to cope with both construction and life-of-field activities.”
Turning to lifting capacity, Morrice is clear that Technip isnot about to follow the likes of Subsea 7 and Heerema with multi-thousand tonne capability cranes, but that the trend is nonetheless towards bigger cranes.
“The Arctic has a 400 tonnes capacity crane and we have the North Sea Atlantic diverless construction vessel coming into the market summer next year and it will have a 650t crane,” he says.
“To do construction projects you need craneage in excess of 250t for a diving vessel going forward. So the new vessels will be in the 250-400t range for sure.”
Morrice points out that life of field and IRM requirements are somewhat different to construction and generally did not need mega cranes. That said, there was a need to strike a balance to enable vessels to tackle such work and engage in the construction market.
“We have large craneage capability on the G-class S-lay vessels; but, from a subsea standpoint, nothing of the size of the Seven Borealis or Aegir though we continually have this sort of thing under review.”
As for the latest delivery into the Technip fleet, Morrice added that Deep Energy has completed trials and is now in the US Gulf of Mexico getting ready to do its first project.
After that, the vessel will come back to Europe to get on with three projects … Boyla in Norway, plus Quad 204 and Alder in UK waters.
These are indeed busy times for Bill Morrice and his huge team.
BILL MORRICE: Q&A
Age: 49..50 in April next year!
Education: RGU where I gained a BSc in Engineering Technology followed by a Post Grad Diploma in Offshore Engineering. Have also gained a Post Grad Cert in Project Management from Aberdeen University and a Level 4 NVQ in Strategic Management.
Main roles in career so far: 1988 to present in the subsea industry; specifically from April 1990 with Stena Offshore (to become Technip UK) in various roles before taking up the challenge from Jan 1995 to May 2011 leading Helix Well Ops business (in the last four years of the role as global VP) providing subsea well intervention services in the North Sea, GOM and APAC. In May 2011 I returned to Technip as MD of the UK business and a member of the group’s North Sea Canada regional management team.
What has been the hardest decision you have made in business? To leave an exciting business and a great team at Helix and take up a fresh new challenge at Technip.
Who has inspired you most in your career? My inspiration comes from my parents whose values, loyalty and work ethic I try to emulate in everything I do.
What do you regard as being your greatest success to date? Playing my part in the reorganisation and subsequent growth success that Technip UK has enjoyed in recent years.
What do you do to relax? I recently bought a boat and am getting into sea fishing. I like being on the water and it gives me some rare time to spend with my family.
Where is your favourite holiday destination? Barbados…white sandy beach, crystal waters, snorkelling, bliss!
What is your favourite gadget? Never go anywhere without my Ipad. Be lost without it!
What charity do you support? We are just closing out our support plans for this year but until concluded I can’t highlight which organisation at this time.
If you were not in the job you are in, what job would you like? An F1 racing driver. The teamwork, precision and technology advances not to mention the thrill would make for never a dull moment.
Where would you like to retire to? Scotland’s West Coast. The scenery is breathtaking and a little slower pace of life.
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