Member News: Global Underwater Hub and Subsea Innovation Cluster Australia join forces to boost subsea sector

April 3, 2025
Member News: Global Underwater Hub and Subsea Innovation Cluster Australia join forces to boost subsea sector
GUH to help UK companies capitalise on significant opportunities in Australia from oil & gas to decommissioning, CCS and offshore wind. 
 
Global Underwater Hub (GUH) and Subsea Innovation Cluster Australia (SICA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together to grow the subsea sector in both hemispheres.
GUH, the trade and development body which represents the UK’s £9.2billion underwater industry has joined forces with SICA – a membership organisation of companies in the Australian subsea industry – to foster innovation, collaboration and growth among companies and organisations in the subsea sector in the UK and Australia.
Under the agreement, the organisations will actively promote opportunities for their subsea supply chains in both countries and support each others’ members in entering their respective markets.  They will also share market intelligence and learnings around diversification strategies particularly in energy transition and defence, including the security and protection of critical underwater infrastructure. Facilitating collaboration will be a priority with the establishment of partnership innovation programmes between UK and Australian firms to develop and implement technology suitable for both regions.
GUH chief executive, Neil Gordon, said: “Australia has a broad conventional energy mix with strong ambitions towards net zero, powered by carbon capture and a growing pipeline of offshore wind projects in both the West and South East Australian regions.
“Crucially, and similar to the UK, Australia champions a just transition which builds in energy resiliency and security with opportunities in sustained oil and gas production, decommissioning, offshore wind and carbon capture. Supply chain companies are encouraged to bring innovative, collaborative and sustainable solutions to this diversified market.” Commenting on the agreement, Colin McIvor, SICA Cluster Manager, said: “This MOU marks an important step in strengthening collaboration between Australia and the UK’s subsea sectors. By working with Global Underwater Hub, we’re opening new opportunities for innovation, knowledge sharing, and international market access for SICA members. Both organisations bring unique strengths: SICA’s agility and cross-sector innovation focus and GUH’s depth of experience and established global networks. By sharing these, we can deliver real impact for established and emerging industries and accelerate significant growth for both countries.”
Mr Gordon highlighted the continued production within the oil and gas industry in Australia where there are opportunities within new developments as well as in the expansion of current production by leading operators such as Woodside and Santos. This is augmented by an increasing focus on carbon capture and storage, driven by the high CO2 content in gas production in the region, where there are presently 18 carbon projects in the planning. Large scale projects such as Browse currently have substantial infrastructure installation requirements which will be followed by inspection, repair and maintenance over the lifetime of the project.
He added: “Decommissioning is a significant opportunity in Australia where the inventory of subsea assets requiring to be decommissioned includes over 1,500 wells and structures and 4,500km of pipelines with major opportunities for specialist plugging, cutting, inspection and recovery technologies.  Meanwhile in offshore wind, largely focused on key areas in the South East and Western Australia, there are projects totalling 11GW. The subsea requirement for cables, foundations, survey and protection systems across upwards of 700 turbines provides a significant future opportunity for UK subsea companies.”
Additional underwater market opportunities exist within defense through the AUKUS alliance for advanced subsea robotics and in the global telecoms market where Western Australia is a key landing point for undersea communication links to Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Mr Gordon concluded: “Similar to the UK, the underwater components, engineering and services are not necessarily required to operate in extreme water depths as in some other deepwater global basins. Instead, environmental and sustainability are key drivers and there is therefore a strong desire from Australian operators and developers to bring in expertise and best practice from UK companies who have almost five decades of experience.”

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AREG has played an important role in the growth of Scotland’s renewable energy sector, engaging the supply chain and developing the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre. However, we are only at the very beginning of the transition that AREG was established to both lead and support so there are still opportunities for companies to get into the constantly evolving renewables supply chain. We look forward to continuing our work together as renewables builds on its place as Scotland’s main source of power, and as we seek to deliver real change in the crucial areas of heat and transport.

Scottish Renewables
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Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce has worked closely with AREG since its formation. The recent progress in the developments of offshore wind projects by Equinor and Vattenfall are as a result of the work of the group over many years. The north-east is known as the oil and gas capital of Europe. At the Chamber, we believe the region must evolve its position to being recognised as the energy capital. Whilst hydrocarbons will continue to be essential in driving our economy for years to come, the generation of renewable resources will play an increasingly important role in providing cost-effective power, innovative development and economic growth.

Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce
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The enthusiasm and dedication of the early group that would become AREG was fundamental in us choosing to launch All-Energy in Aberdeen. The first tiny show was held in 2001, and AREG’s Chairman at the time, Jeremy Cresswell, played such an active role that I often describe him in terms such as All-Energy’s ‘midwife’. All-Energy is now the UK’s largest renewable and low carbon energy exhibition and conference in terms of number of attendees, space booked, and number of exhibiting companies. As AREG became firmly established, their presence and support for the event grew spectacularly over the years. We thank them most sincerely for their invaluable input.

All-Energy
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Vattenfall has forged a strong working relationship with AREG through the development of the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre. AREG has worked tirelessly on behalf of the North East and it can take enormous credit for the growth of sustainable energy in the region and the path it has cleared for the region to capture further investment.

Vattenfall
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Aberdeen City and Shire is emerging as a key location for renewables by successfully transferring its world-class oil and gas expertise into the sector and AREG has done much to advance this through a broad range of initiatives. It has acted as a catalyst in driving further investment in the local economy by engaging with companies, Government, public bodies and existing projects and we have been pleased to support their efforts. Scottish Enterprise will continue to engage with AREG as we increase Scotland’s use of renewable energy.

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