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Oceans of opportunity to be explored at Aberdeen's Subsea Expo 2021


By Calum MacLeod

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Subsea Expo is the world’s largest annual subsea exhibition and conference and includes the industry’s prestigious awards ceremony, the Subsea UK Awards. (Photo: Ross Johnston/Newsline Media)
Subsea Expo is the world’s largest annual subsea exhibition and conference and includes the industry’s prestigious awards ceremony, the Subsea UK Awards. (Photo: Ross Johnston/Newsline Media)

Scottish firms can find out how they can get a share of the $3 trillion global blue economy at the Subsea Expo planned for Aberdeen in 2021.

Oceans of Opportunity will be the theme of the three day exhibition and conference as it explores how the UK’s underwater engineering industry can capitalise on a sector estimated to be worth $3 trillion by 2030.

Organised by industry body, Subsea UK, the three-day event is scheduled for Aberdeen’s P&J Live from February 23 to 25 2021, subject to coronavirus restrictions.

If it does go ahead, Europe’s largest underwater industry exhibition and conference is set to be one of the first post-pandemic, large scale physical, as opposed to virtual, events back on the international calendar.

Subsea UK chief executive Neil Gordon at last year's event.
Subsea UK chief executive Neil Gordon at last year's event.

Neil Gordon, chief executive of Subsea UK, said: “The underwater engineering industry currently generates annual revenues of £7.8billion and a large slice of that still comes from the oil and gas sector. However, as the industry extends its reach into offshore wind, defence, ocean and marine science and aquaculture, there is the opportunity to grow global marketshare of what’s now known as the blue economy or ocean economy.

“Forecast to be worth around $3 trillion in the next 10 years, the blue economy is the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth. Oil and gas, offshore and marine renewables and aquaculture account for around a third of its value.

“This is good news for the subsea industry whose underwater engineering capabilities, honed in North Sea oil and gas and increasingly in demand in offshore wind, are eminently transferrable to defence, ocean science, aquaculture and deep sea mining.”

Approaching its 16th year, the event attracts around 200 exhibitors and almost 7000 delegates from around the world. Over a third of the floor space has already been booked.

Mr Gordon added: “Interest in next year’s event is on the increase and it’s clear there is an appetite for a return to real, rather than virtual, events. Our industry’s main sector – oil and gas – has taken a double blow with coronavirus and the collapse in commodity price but, with the race to achieve net-zero, a green recovery on the horizon, including hydrogen and carbon capture, coupled with oceans of opportunity in the blue economy, we are sensing renewed optimism. This augers well for 2021 and we anticipate a more buoyant mood at next year’s Subsea Expo.”

The deadline for submitting abstracts to present at Subsea Expo is October 9. Entries for the Subsea UK Awards will also be accepted up to this date. Details about the award categories, booking exhibition space and sponsorship opportunities are available on the Subsea Expo website: www.subseaexpo.com/

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