UK-based subsea inspection, repair and maintenance firm Harkand has gone into administration.
In a recorded message left by the firm on its phone line, the company said that on Wednesday, 4 May, staff from Deloitte had been appointed joint administrators of Harkand Group and its subsidiaries.
It is understood a number of other entities within the group, including Aberdeen-based Andrews Survey are not subject to insolvency proceedings, and continue to trade.
Late April, Harkand saw its creditors, Nordic Trustee, terminate two of its dive support vessel charters, Harkand da Vinci and Harkand Atlantis, after the firm missed interest payments. The firm then set a date of 4 May for a full loan repayment.
Meanwhile, Bollinger Fourchon filed a lawsuit in federal court in New Orleans seeking consent to seize Harkand’s vessel Siem Spearfish due to unpaid debt for multiple uses of its docks.
Late last year, another relatively new subsea construction firm, Ceona, also went into administration. Ceona, founded in 2012, in a hot subsea SURF market, was operating the company owned newbuild SURF vessel Ceona Amazon, the leased Polar Onyx and Normand Pacific subsea construction vessels, and the owned Giant II and Blue Giant vessels.
Shortly before its failure, GC Rieber Shipping terminated a contract it had with Ceona for the subsea vessel Polar Onyx. The new vessel was on a five-year contract to Ceona, signed March 2014. The contract termination was due to Ceona's default, GC Rieber said at the time.
The pain in the market has not been limited to smaller players. Technip has been reducing its fleet in the wake of the lower activity levels. Last year it said it would reduce the fleet to 23 vessels from 36 at the end of 2013
Subscribe
