Allseas Group

Allseas Group is a private maritime company founded and owned by Edward Heerema. The company is primarily a maritime pipe layer but is also engaged in other types of subsea work, including heavy lifting for installation and removal of offshore equipment and fabrication of subsea structures. The company is Dutch but has its headquarters in Chatel-Saint-Denis, Switzerland, and operates in Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia, the United Kingdom, Portugal, India, Brazil, and the U.S.

Allseas History

Heerema founded Allseas in 1985 with the original offices in The Hague, Netherlands, and Chatel-Saint-Denis in Switzerland.

• The company was founded based on a new system for pipelaying called dynamic positioning.
• One of the company’s first vessels, the Lorelay, was the world’s first dedicated to using this process for laying subsea pipes. The ship’s first assignment was a contract for pipes in the North Sea.
• The company began to dominate the pipelaying business, first in the North Sea and then later expanding into other regions, like South Africa.
• As the company grew, it started opening more offices, including in Belgium, Australia, and Houston, Texas.
• The company grew, not by acquiring other similar companies but by innovations in its process and including services beyond pipelaying.
• In 1995, the company conducted its first deepwater pipeline contract in the Gulf of Mexico.

A big player in the maritime industry, Allseas has faced its fair share of controversies and lawsuits over accidents, worker injuries, and fatalities. 

Allseas Operations and Fleet

Allseas operations began with building and laying subsea pipelines, which remains a significant part of the company’s operations.

Allseas specializes in designing and installing pipelines in various geographic regions and shallow and ultra-deep waters.

The company designs custom pipelines, installs them, maintains and protects pipelines, surveys subsea regions for pipelaying, and engineers projects for particular situations and areas that have never seen pipelines.

Heavy lifting is another significant part of Allseas’ operations. The company has built massive vessels explicitly designed to lift heavy equipment and structures.

It uses these vessels and equipment to install platforms and other equipment in offshore locations and remove those being decommissioned. The company’s biggest ship can lift an entire topside, weighing up to 48,000 tons.

Allseas’ fleet includes an array of specialty equipment for various projects and subsea systems for trenching and laying pipelines. Its vessel fleet includes six large ships explicitly designed for the kinds of jobs the company engages in. The Lorelay, the company’s first vessel, was the world’s first dynamic positioning pipelaying vessel and is still in operation.

The fleet also includes:

• The Tog Mor, for shallow water pipelaying
• The Calamity Jane, for trenching support
• The Audacia, for large pipeline installations
• The Solitaire, a state-of-the-art ship that currently holds many world records for deepwater pipelaying.
• The Pioneering Spirit, a heavy-lifting vessel designed to complete single-lift installations

The Pioneering Spirit is responsible for removing some of the largest offshore structures in the world.

Vessel Naming Controversy

Allseas faced perhaps its biggest controversy when it announced the name of its new heavy-lifting vessel. It was to be called the Pieter Schelte for founder Edward Heerema’s father.

Pieter Shelte was a convicted war criminal and Nazi SS member during World War II. The company eventually bowed to pressure to change the name, and that vessel is now called the Pioneering Spirit.

Worker Safety at Allseas

Pipelaying in offshore locations and deep waters is very dangerous. Allseas has a safety policy in place called Allsafe.

The company describes it as a behavior-based safety program with the goal of having zero accidents that impact worker safety. The key values of the program are:

• Ownership
• Communication
• Relationships
• Teamwork
• Recognition of risk
• Intervention

Allsafe also includes a set of basic rules by which workers are expected to operate at all levels within the company and are based on prevention as a number one goal. A few examples of Allsafe safety rules include: 

• Not walking under a suspended load, securing authorization before entering any confined space,
• Protecting hands and fingers with appropriate safety gear
• Consistently verifying that energy sources are isolated before working.

The company also gives authority to workers at all levels to stop any operation that is believed to be unsafe.

Offshore work sometimes occurs in dangerous areas, including waters in which pirates have been known to operate. Allseas has also taken worker safety to a new and unprecedented level.

In 2008, Allseas became the first maritime company with seagoing vessels to equip its fleet with heavy arms. This was done to protect the crew and ensure worker safety.

Worker Injuries and Maritime Law

Allseas has a good record for worker safety compared to others in the industry, but it cannot claim an accident-free history. Deep sea pipelaying is risky work, and even with the best safety precautions, things can go wrong.

Workers may suffer from weather and rough water accidents, equipment failures, or bad decision-making and communication between workers.

One notable incident involved a worker named Eddie Patterson aboard the Lorelay. He was responsible for safety and did his job when checking on standing water on the deck. Wearing wet boots at the time, he then slipped and fell on a stairway.

Using the Jones Act, a maritime law that supports seamen, he sued the company for failing to warn of the risk of wearing wet boots on stairs. A court awarded Patterson monetary damages, but an Appeals Court reversed that decision.

The incident and subsequent lawsuits demonstrate just how dangerous the work on a seagoing vessel can be and how the law can protect and yet fail workers.

The Jones Act allows seamen to sue their employers for damages when injured on the job, but the employer must be found responsible to some extent for the injury. In this case, the Appeals Court did not believe that Allseas was negligent or failed to warn a worker of dangers.

If you have been injured on a maritime job, whether on a vessel, an offshore platform, or in port, you have rights under maritime law. You can sue your employer if you believe you are not being offered the compensation you deserve. Just be sure to consult with a maritime lawyer to get the best advice on how to proceed.