Marine Platforms commenced its subsea support services on Chevron\’s Agbami field on the 1st of March 2009 with the Star Deepwater Petroleum Limited, the Joint venture company of Chevron and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC). We were awarded the Star Deepwater interim intervention vessel charter contract to provide life of field installation and subsea intervention services on the Agbami field, which is the largest deep-water producing field in Nigeria, operating at a water depth of 4500ft/1500 meters.

Tasked with the scope to deliver a crewed multi-purpose vessel for Intervention, Repair, and Maintenance (IRM) as well as light construction support services, Marine Platforms deployed the Siem Marlin for the execution of this project. The Siem Marlin, a multipurpose ROV support and light construction vessel got to the field in 2009 immediately after being her build. She came with a 100t crane, 69-man accommodation and was equipped with two 150 HP work class ROVs. Siem Offshore owned the vessel while the ROVs were owned by Canyon Offshore.

Facing the unavailability of skilled personnel, Marine Platform relentlessly ensured that Nigerian trainees were engaged to understudy the expatriates undertaking major operations. While the trainees gathered hands-on experience offshore and were sent abroad for classroom training. Marine Platforms ploughed back all its profitability into the company for material capacity development. A year later Marine Platforms purchased her first ROV and others followed, two of which replaced the then-existing ROVs owned by 3rd party strategic partners, Canyon Offshore. In March 2012, after several seasons of self-denial and deferred gratification, Marine Platforms was able to purchase her first multipurpose platform support vessel, the African Vision.

Not resting on its achievements, Marine Platforms continued to plough back profit to further build human and material capacity. In 2014, the African Inspiration, a $112m multipurpose vessel with 250t crane and 120-man accommodation was purchased from Havyard shipyard Norway. While she was being built, Marine Platforms shortlisted 15 indigenous greenhorn engineers from the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron to begin intensive training as engine cadets and officers at the vessel build facility, Havyard shipyard in Leirvik, Norway. The intent was to ensure a robust familiarization process of the vessel\\\’s technology and grow with the build of the vessel up to its completion stage.

As the 2009 contract came to the replacement stage, Marine Platforms participated in an open bid and emerged as the new contract winner while still operating as the incumbent contractor. Pursuant to the new award, Marine Platforms delivered the newly purchased vessel; the African Inspiration to take over from the Siem Marlin. At this point, MPL had grown a robust operational track record that saw to the installation of several xmas trees, jumpers and varying subsea equipment across the 42 wells on the Agbami field

In the same year, Marine Platforms won a competitive tender for the brownfield deep-water construction contract to carry out subsea tie-back for the Agbami field. The scope centered on the transportation, installation, and pre-commissioning (TIP) of flexible flowlines, jumpers, umbilical and manifold. Marine Platforms deployed the Polar Onyx; an offshore construction vessel (OCV) with 250t AHC Crane, 270t top tension Vertical Lay System (VLS) and reel drive system. All engineering and project management work was carried out in Marine Platforms admin office by a combination of MPL engineers and a technical partner, PDI. This was a significant milestone for Marine platforms and a first by a Nigeria company because projects like this ordinarily were executed by the major subsea construction companies. The Agbami phase 3 project yielded many successes. Not only was it completed ahead of schedule and had no lost time incident, Chevron also had significant cost savings against budget and production increased significantly.

Jeffery Ewing, the Managing Director of Chevron Nigeria said
\\\”One of the partnerships we are really proud of is Marine Platforms. One of the things that they have done is to go from a locally competitive contractor to a globally competitive contractor. They did the first installation in Nigeria of subsea manifolds, wellhead and flowlines. They did it at half the price of a global competitor. They did an excellent job of building their capabilities in country because they were training their own people and making sure they were capable of doing the types of work we needed in the future.\\\”

Besides the quality service delivery and track record established, Marine Platforms made significant progress in the development of human capacity. All from trainee levels, we trained over 31 cadets, one 2nd officer, two 3rd officers, and 40 ROV supervisors and pilot technicians. At unplanned occasional periods, Marine platforms had a fully working local ROV team manning operations on various systems. Most significantly, we have hit a 2 million manhour without lost-time incident on the Agbami field service operations. This significant and remarkable milestone was achieved in the 2nd quarter of 2018.

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About Marine Platforms
Marine Platforms is a Nigerian oil service company focused on providing diverse services to the upstream sector of the oil & gas industry in Nigeria and the African continent sustainably. With services ranging from brownfield development, subsea solutions, well services and vessel chartering, we adhere to the highest standards of professionalism and strive to exceed the expectations of our clients through integrity, imbibing very strict safety culture and quality service delivery.