Evolution of Aker Kvaerner: 1841 to 2002

The timeline below summarizes the main events leading to the foundation of Aker Kvaerner —from its origins as Aker Mechanical Workshop (1841) — until the merger of Aker Maritime with Kværner Oil & Gas to form Aker Kvaerner in 2002 .

• Timeline
  • 1841: Aker establishes its first workshop along the Aker river in Oslo and calls it Aker Mechanical Workshop (Aker Mekaniske Verksted)
  • 1853: Kværner Brug founded in Oslo.
  • 1922: Kværner Brug begins cooperation with Myrens Verksted
  • 1943: Kværner and Myren jointly acquire a majority shareholding in Thunes Mekaniske Verksted.
  • 1960: Kværner Brug president, Kjell Langballe, appointed president of all 'Kværner Group' companies
  • 1967: Joint holding company Kværner Industries AS established in December, listing on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The Kværner Group — comprising 10 Norwegian companies, 3,200 employees and operating revenues of NOK 385 million — enters the offshore oil and gas market from its base in Oslo and Kværner Engineering, an engineering and contracting company set-up in the late 1960's.
  • 1978: Offshore construction work starts at Kværner Egersund, and during this period the shipyard in Stavanger is converted into an offshore fabrication facility.
  • 1993: Construction work begins at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp through jointly owned subsidiary, Kværner Process Services Inc. (KPSI), initiating a business partnership with the US Department of Defense that would last until 2006.^[4]
  • 1996: Kværner seeks to strengthen its engineering base internationally through the acquisition of UK-based conglomerate, Trafalgar House, becoming an international player in shipbuilding, oil and gas, pulp and paper plus engineering and construction. International headquarters is moved to London.
  • 1998: Kværner's pulp and paper becomes a core business area in its own right
  • 1999: The company initiates a major sell-off focused on realizing capital by divestment, but mounting financial and operational challenges persist and bring the company to an acute liquidity crisis in August 2001.
  • 2000: In July, Aker Maritime ASA, a Norway-based offshore products, technology and services provider, buys 26 percent of the shares in Kværner ASA.
  • 2001: In November, an agreement is reached between Aker Maritime ASA and Kværner ASA. Aker Maritime injects NOK 2.8 bn in net assets, raises another NOK 3.5 bn through two direct issues and renegotiates NOK 8.6 bn of Kværner's debt.
  • 2002: The Group decides to adopt the Aker Kvaerner brand for the entire Group.

Aker Kværner, and transition to Aker Solutions: 2002 to 2008

Logo of Aker Kværner prior to company renaming.

Aker Kværner resulted from a merger of Aker Maritime and Kværner Oil & Gas in 2002, and a major restructuring of the Aker Kværner business unit in 2004.

Earlier in 2003, the group structure of Aker Kværner was split into six business areas; Field Development Europe, MMO Europe, Subsea & Oilfield Products, Oil, Gas & Process International, E&C Europe and E&C Americas. A need arose in 2004 to simplify a complex group structure which led to the formation of two focused industrial groups: Aker Kværner, specialists within oil, gas, energy and process engineering, and Aker Yards, specialist shipbuilders. In addition, Aker Kværner became a minor shareholder in the Finnish engineering company Aker Arctic in 2004. The new Aker Kvaerner started trading on Oslo Stock Exchange under ticker symbol 'AKVER' on 2 April 2004.^[5][6]

In 2006, the company's pulp-and-paper and power businesses were sold to Finnish-based Metso in a deal worth €335 million.^[7] On 7 June 2007, an agreement was announced where a 40.1 percent stake of the company would be sold from Aker ASA to Aker Holding.^[2] The new company would be owned by Aker ASA (60%), the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry (30%), SAAB (7.5%) and Investor (2.5%).^[3][8]

In 2007, the company was identified by Amnesty International as an accessory to torture and other human rights abuses for its collaboration in constructing and maintaining the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.^[4]

Aker Solutions: 2008 to 2020

During the AGM held on 3 April 2008, Aker Kværner announced that it would rebrand as Aker Solutions, a name that references Aker's businesses heritage while being easy to pronounce.

Between April 2010 and June 2010, the company was awarded three contracts by Noble Energy to supply steel tube umbilicals, a complete mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) reclamation unit, and subsea control equipment for the construction of offshore oil platforms in the Tamar gas field in Israel. Together, the contracts were worth NOK 1.1 billion.^[9]

On 6 May 2011, the Kværner name re-emerged when Aker Solutions' EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) division was re-branded, and a new company was spun off and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange in the third-quarter of 2011. Aker Solutions' holding company — Aker Holdings AS — was renamed Aker Kværner Holding AS and it held about 40% of Kværner ASA. Aker ASA took over the 10% stake owned by Saab and Investor AB, raising its stake in Aker Kværner Holding AS to 70%.

In 2014, Aker Solutions was further divided into two companies, Aker Solutions and Akastor, and in August Aker Solutions leased the entire first phase of the new Aberdeen International Business Park^[10] as part of a consolidation and strengthening of its oilfield services in and around Aberdeen, Scotland.

However, on 18 February 2015, the company announced the loss of around 300 jobs in Norway as a response to falling oil prices and the decline in demand for drilling services.^[11]

In November 2020, Aker Solutions merged with Kværner ASA.^[12][13]

Aker Solutions since 2021

Aker Solutions weathered the Covid-19 supply-chain and energy-price disruptions of 2020 and emerged a changed company. Restrictions related to the declared Covid-19 pandemic had primarily impacted the mobilization of personnel in and out of Norway.

The structural change embarked on by management late in 2020 saw the successful spinning off of Aker Carbon Capture and Aker Offshore Wind. The move won praise for unlocking significant shareholder value, and the newly merged company assumed a leading position as a consultancy and project-execution partner for existing and emerging energy industries.

Though serving renewable-energy and oil-and gas clients, the end of 2020 revealed the company was still a powerhouse of offshore energy engineering. A contract from Chevron to provide subsea umbilicals for the Jansz-Io subsea gas compression development, offshore Australia, affirmed the company's position as a cutting-edge subsea technology company. Jansz-lo's subsea gas compression system marked an international breakthrough for world-leading subsea gas compression technology that marked a major leap in improving recovery rates, reducing costs, enhancing safety and lowering emissions.

After securing the largest decommissioning contract seen in Europe in 2021 (the Heimdal and Veslefrikk infrastructure), tendering activity to start 2021 remained high, and Aker Solutions bid on contracts worth about NOK 78 billion, some 30 percent of which derived from offshore wind, carbon capture, hydrogen, and low-carbon solutions for oil and gas such as subsea gas compression.

In 2022, an EPCI contract from Shell to build the Jackdaw not-permanently attended installation, or NPAI, affirmed the continued importance of gas production for UK energy security as well as Aker Solutions' role as engineering consultancy and builder of vital offshore energy infrastructure.

Subsea spin-off

In the summer of 2022, Aker Solutions, Schlumberger and Subsea 7 announced they would form a large new, pure-play subsea operations business. On 2 October 2023, the deal closed, and Aker Solutions became 20-percent co-owner of the OneSubsea joint venture (JV) for a total consideration of USD 700 million. This new version of OneSubsea, an existing company, comprises SLB's and the bulk of Aker Solutions' former subsea assets.

The post-JV Aker Solutions is a diverse place of work boasting 91 nationalities, 11,000 employees and a well-practiced safety culture.

ESG & Sustainability

Aker Solutions appears committed to UN Sustainability Goals, and in early 2021 announced it would reduce its environmental footprint by targeting a 50 percent reduction of its own CO₂ emissions by 2030 (over 2019 levels). By mid-2021, a commitment to be Net Zero (net zero-emmissions of CO₂) by 2050 had also been announced, and an initiative to be transparent about company emissions was well-underway, guided by the Aker Solutions Climate Action Plan.  

By 2022, a range of emissions-tracking tools as part of the Aker Solutions Climate Action Plan were in place to measure the carbon-dioxide and resource-use footprints of objects and logistics ahead of ESG reporting in earnest.

New Energies

Aker Solutions stated mission of "solving energy challenges for future generations" found an important partner in early 2021, when a Memorandum of Understanding with Doosan Babcock was signed for the joint delivery of low-carbon renewable energy projects in the UK. The partnership aims to design and build onshore plant for the production of hydrogen and for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS).

A number of wind energy project awards followed by mid-2021. In May, ScottishPower Renewables' East Anglia THREE offshore wind project called for the delivery of engineering, procurement, construction, and installation (EPCI) of a large high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) platform. In July, Aker Solutions and consortium partners signed another EPCI contract to provide an HVDC transmission system and converter platform for a large offshore wind project.

In Norway, as Aker Solutions’ yard at Stord completed the milestone first phase of construction for 11 concrete wind-turbine hulls for Equinor’s Hywind Tampen project, a contract was won to provide wind energy developers Ørsted and Eversource with an HVDC transmission system for the Sunrise Wind offshore wind project, New York's first.

In anticipation of a Norwegian offshore wind licensing round involving the Utsira Nord acreage offshore Stavanger, Aker Solutions, Mainstream Renewable Power, Ocean Winds and Statkraft formed a consortium in 2022 to develop floating wind power in a license first showcased by the government in March 2023.

A front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract to develop an e-Fuel facility for Nordic Electrofuel envisions the production of synthetic fuels based on hydrogen, CO2 and renewable power.

Electrification

Offering the electrification of offshore oil-and-gas infrastructure as part of a maintenance-and-modifications package has paid off for the Aker Solutions bottom line.

The strategy of electrifying oil platforms also takes aim at Norway's carbon-dioxide emissions, about 30-percent of which can be traced to oil and gas extraction on the Norwegian continental shelf. The business impetus comes from the Norwegian government's CO2 tax and the ESG objectives.

Aker Solutions offers technology and expertise to replace the gas-fired power used by offshore installations with hydro power from shore or wind-energy from nearby wind turbines.

Between 2021 and 2023, a switch to electrification by offshore energy company's was underway offshore Norway. Electrification studies and projects accrued and now include the following:

• Edvard Grieg Platform (2020): EPCI award to integrate high-voltage electrical boiler, replace gas turbines; CO2 savings about 200,000t/yr
• Troll B & C (2021): FEED (Jan. 2020) and EPCI topsides modification for power cable from shore;
• Draugen Electrification (2023): EPCI work order to heavily modify a platform & install a cable for power from shore; CO2 savings 200,000t/yr

Northern Lights

In January 2019, Aker Solutions won a contract to build the world's first onshore CO2 receiving terminal and storage facility for shipments of the greenhouse gas from various industrial emitters.

The order kick-started the Northern Lights project, and two years later, energy company Equinor awarded Aker Solutions the NOK 1.3 billion task of designing and building onshore CCS plant and a subsea system to effect CO2 storage. Northern Lights is part of the Norwegian government’s Longship project for establishing full-scale CO2 capture, transport and storage facilities in-line with the country’s international climate agreements.

The aim is to transport by ship CO2 captured from a Norcem cement plant at Brevik, in southern Norway, to a new receiving terminal at Øygarden, near Bergen, in western Norway. Aker Solutions had also acted as subcontractor for CCS-technology company, Aker Carbon Capture, as they planned the cement factory's CO2 plant. The plan is for CO2 to be stored intermittently at Øygarden before being injected by pipeline and via subsea wells into geological structures.