Lowe Offshore International News

The Norwegian cartel authority Konkurransetilsynet has approved the merger of Noble Denton with Germanischer Lloyd (GL). The two companies had announced their merger on 1 April 2009. Together, Germanischer Lloyd and Noble Denton will form a global technical assurance and consulting company to serve the oil and gas sector. The purchase of Noble Denton is the largest corporate acquisition in the history of Germanischer Lloyd. Germanischer Lloyd and Noble Denton will provide consulting, assurance as well as project management on a worldwide scale especially for the oil & gas and renewable energy sectors as well as for the maritime industry. The spectrum of services ranges from design and construction, transportation and installation.

The merger of Noble Denton and Germanischer Lloyd forms an integrated technical assurance and consulting company to serve the worldwide energy industries. The new entity will provide assurance, inspection, and consulting as well as project management. It will focus its worldwide services along the entire life cycle oil and gas - upstream, midstream, and downstream, renewable and energy installations onshore and offshore. This includes safety, integrity, reliability and performance management. Germanischer Lloyd, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, and Noble Denton, headquartered in London have followed similar growth strategies. Both organisations have conducted a number of acquisitions recently to complement their areas of expertise.

Noble Denton, the premier provider of life cycle marine and offshore engineering services to the oil & gas, marine and renewables industries, announced two executive appointments within its American operations. The company appointed Michael Lowe as Global Business Team Group Director, Project Management Services, and Vernon Luning as President, Lowe Offshore International, US Project Management Services. Michael Lowe will report to David Rowan, Managing Director, Project Management & Execution, with an initial remit to develop the company’s global field development project management capabilities. He furthers a 35-year career in domestic and international oil & gas project management and market development.

Noble Denton Group has joined an elite group of British businesses as it secured 59th place in this year’s Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100 list. Now in its second year, the prestigious league table ranks Britain’s top 100 private equity-backed mid-market companies with the fastest growing profits (EBITDA) over two years. The research analyses the profit performance of private equity-backed companies, rather than just the buyout deals. Noble Denton is one of 12 energy firms on the list and achieved 39.9% annual profit growth in 2006. The company joined forces with two Norwegian private equity firms, HitecVision and Ferncliff TIH in the same year.

Offshore and marine consulting firm Noble Denton Group has expanded its UK presence with the opening of a new office in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The move is part of an on-going period of global expansion for the company. Noble Denton Consultants Ltd., one of the UK operating companies of the Noble Denton Group, will operate from the Newcastle office in Seaton Burn where the new team has brought specialist skills in design and consultancy for ports, ships and marine operations, using state of the art structural and hydrodynamic tools to underpin their technical work. The office will also provide a base for the existing broad range of Noble Denton Consultants’ technical consultancy services. The new operation will be headed by David Byrne, general manager of Noble Denton Consultants Ltd.