In 2021, IK-Group and ICON Engineering announced a strategic alliance aimed at offering operators upstream and downstream intervention, repair, and decommissioning capacity. Together, the two companies represent five decades of innovation and world firsts — IK-Group’s emergency engineering capability and product catalogue dovetails with ICON’s extensive offshore execution track record.
Why ICON and IK-Group Joined Forces
IK-Group COO Adrian Gamman said the alliance would provide Australasian operators, through ICON, with IK’s specialist products and services for pipe and pipelines, subsea, and topsides work. “These are exciting times, and we are looking forward to growing this relationship in the years to come,” he said. The innovative provision of often bespoke solutions to offshore engineering problems was the common factor that led to the alliance.
“With ICON’s local presence and IK’s track record, we believe this agreement will suit the Australian market very well,” Mr Gamman said. “ICON’s head office is located in Perth, WA, which will enable ICON to provide IK-Group’s solutions to the local market with a much quicker response time and a better understanding of the local market. Specifically, this will be hugely beneficial to the end client when working on fast-track deployment of emergency repairs that are synonymous with IK-Group.”
ICON Managing Director David Field said: “ICON and IK-Group have very similar innovative cultures. Our respective, and complementary, product and services lines have all evolved from solving technically challenging and real problems, often when there simply isn’t a solution anywhere. At our respective companies’ cores are very capable technical and management teams, experienced with execution in the field, and the proven ability to respond quickly.” Writing at a time when COVID-19 was restricting international travel, Mr Field also noted that the collaboration gave both companies a way to combine technical expertise across time zones while travel remained difficult — face-to-face client meetings being something neither company saw a substitute for.
Two Companies, Five Decades of Track Record
The Norwegian-based IK-Group has over 30 years’ experience in the fast-tracked deployment of emergency repairs to offshore subsea equipment and pipelines. Repairs, upgrades, and modifications to fixed and floating rigs are a core part of ICON’s well-established Rig, Vessel and Platform Modifications business unit. ICON Engineering is an Australian oil and gas services company focused on delivering practical solutions to onshore and offshore field developments, with a particular focus on drilling equipment and the design and installation of minimal wellhead platforms for marginal field developments or extensions.
ICON has installed more offshore platforms with jackup drilling rigs than any other company worldwide, and is expert in minimal facilities installation techniques such as Minnowpods, Monopods, and Annex wellhead platforms. Its track record includes a British Government engineering award for the innovative North Sea design and installation method of Shell’s Skiff oilfield, and the first fixed wellhead platform installed in the Timor Sea. ICON has also carried out the deepest and lowest-cost deployment of flexible flowlines from a semi-submersible drilling rig in Australia, and has pioneered mini-floatover technology for installing small topsides in weight ranges up to 1200 tonnes.
IK-Group brings its own 30-plus year history as an innovative supplier of specialist products and services for pipe and pipelines, both subsea and topside. Maintaining customers’ cash flow while performing maintenance and intervention is core to IK-Group’s mission, and its patented designs for isolation and repair of pipe and pipeline from 1 to 46 inches have a proven track record onshore, topside, and subsea — reducing costly subsea operations with innovative alternatives and surgical precision.
For the current state of this partnership, see ICON’s IK-Group partner page. Contact ICON or IK-Group directly for more information.
