How has Aberdeen been tied to Subsea 7’s success story?
Subsea 7’s roots are a combination of UK, American and Norwegian cultures. The company came about as a result of a merger between Halliburton Subsea and Norwegian company DSND. Halliburton Subsea was an American business that was very successful in developing Subsea technology. DSND was one of the oldest Norwegian shipping companies which believed in vessels and was keen on investing further in the Subsea sector. While I was heading the Subsea business for Halliburton I met with Kristian Siem, a charismatic entrepreneur and the owner of DSND. Kristian quite rightly saw the opportunities in the Subsea sector but he also recognised that DSND did not have the right engineering and project management expertise required to develop the business at the time. I explained to him that together we could turn Halliburton Subsea and DSND into a top-class Subsea engineering and construction company, and that vision was effectively put in place in 2002. I remained in Halliburton looking after their E
