Speed-dating Galore

GCE Subsea kicked off a busy month of events with Møteforum 2 November. Once again this popular event was of great interest among our partners and members with 70 participants and close to 200 speed-dates completed.

GCE Subsea Møteforum offer our members an opportunity to meet with existing or potential customers like Statoil and major subsea contractors like Aker Solutions, OneSubsea and TechnipFMC. Equally important is, that it provides an arena to find each other and to explore partnering opportunities for startups, SME’s and R&D institutions.

Initial Keynotes

Before the speed-dating started, Bjørn Midtun from Statoil and Tom Eirik Fredriksen from Inventura held two short presentations:

Statoil outlined a large subsea project portfolio under development. The list contains some 18 projects, most of which have planned DG2 and DG3 phases before 2020. Some 140 new wells and 50 templates are under evaluation. However, not all these will be realised because subsea solutions are competing with unmanned process platforms (Subsea on a stick).

Inventura pointed out the importance for sub-suppliers to understand the difference in supply chain strategies between large and small operators and main contractors. While small operators are teaming up closer to EPCI suppliers and do less themselves, Statoil is currently using different approaches for different projects and have resources to do more internally.

Inventura also mentioned the consolidation going on in in the supply chain, and the importance of being a multi-skilled supplier. - Every supplier should do an honest SWOT with respect to their own market position. Many companies tend to overrate their own strength, and will probably benefit from teaming up with complementary companies, or seek a sub-supplier role, said Tom Eirik Fredriksen, Partner, Inventura.

The Speed-dating

The speed-dating saw many companies and organisations discovering common interests that they wish to pursue further. – For me this was my first time attending GCE Subsea Møteforum, and I felt that this was a very good arena for discussing how we can jointly secure the future solutions of subsea. For us in Statoil this was an efficient way to meet existing and new partners, said Gro Stakkestad, Manager Subsea Technology and Operations Statoil.

Many of the larger companies participated with people from procurement and supply chain management in search of potential new vendors. From OneSubsea, Major Third Party Sourcing Specialist Manager, Eleonora Cao took part, and she was very pleased with the event. – The presentations were informative and covered less conventional topics, while I found the speed-dating approach an efficient and effective way to meet potential new vendors, she said.

Heard at Møteforum:

"Møteforum represents a golden opportunity for us to keep up to date on the latest developments and meet new and existing contacts, all in an energetic and informal atmosphere. More of this!” Torstein Rasmussen, Sales Manager Olvondo Industries AS

"Not every day that you can have three meetings with different parts of Statoil in one day!” Bjarne Olsen, CEO FluidSep AS

" The best Møteforum I have been to so far, and I have been to many!” Kristian Karlsen, CEO Fjell Subsea AS