Marine survey company Bibby Hydromap has been placed in administration with KPMG the administrator now handling the company’s affairs
The company, which worked in the offshore oil and gas and offshore wind sectors among others, did not initially make an official announcement but several former employees have taken to social media to confirm that most staff have been made redundant.
In a 6 April 2020 statement, the administrators Andrew Stone and Rick Harrison from KPMG’s restructuring team said they had been appointed joint administrators to Bibby Hydromap on 3 April 2020.
They said, "The company employed 108 members of staff. Regrettably, with the company ceasing to trade upon the appointment of the administrators, the majority of the workforce have been made redundant with immediate effect.
"The administrators have retained a small workforce for a short period of time to assist with completing certain parts of a commercial contract and to assist them with their duties."
Mr Stone said, “The company had come under sustained cash flow pressure for some time, culminating in it embarking on an accelerated sales process to identify potential buyers or investment partners.
“While a number of expressions of interest were received from both financial investors and trade parties, unfortunately this interest did not materialise into any viable offers.
"The challenges that the business faced were not related to the Covid-19 pandemic and despite exploring the government schemes that have been put in place, these schemes were not suitable to fix the issues at hand, resulting in the directors taking the difficult decision to place the company into administration.
“We will be working with the employees over the coming days ahead to ensure they have all necessary support at this difficult time. Parties which may be interested in acquiring the company’s assets are invited to contact: bibbyhydromap@kpmg.co.uk."
The company provided a wide range of services, including hydrographic and geophysical survey, subsea cable survey and inspection, UXO survey and pipeline inspection.
In November 2019, the company chartered Mintis, a 39-m DP1 catamaran owned and operated by the Marine Research Institute at Klaipeda University. The vessel was due to become available for projects in May 2020 following a 2DHR seismic campaign in the Netherlands.
As recently as March 2020, Bibby HydroMap took 56-m DP1 survey vessel Glomar Vantage on charter from GloMar Shipmanagement.
In 2019, Bibby HydroMap conducted a demonstration of the DriX autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) at the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult facility in Blyth. The demo followed successful trials of a DriX ASV on the Gwynt y Môr offshore windfarm.
The purpose of the demonstration was to showcase the ASV in the offshore renewables sector to capture information at all stages of a project. Bibby HydroMap said it believed an ASV could reduce the cost of conducting surveys on offshore windfarms.
Bibby Hydromap, Bibby Maritime and Bibby Marine Services are all held by holding group Bibby Marine. Bibby Marine is a subsidiary of Bibby Line Group.
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