GSS Marine Services: expert marine contractors

GSS is an expanding, international company, playing an active role in marine construction and support services worldwide.

Recent years have seen GSS expanding into Africa, the Middle East, Far East and Australia.

Projects supported by GSS include coastal work, bridge and marine work, piers and jetties, pipe and cable laying, welding and diving support and marine piling. And although MOD contracts comprise a part of the workload, the company undertakes major civil contracts in both Britain and Europe. This includes a move into the renewable energy industry, particularly in construction support and repair and maintenance of offshore wind farms.

Its varied fleet of vessels gives GSS the capacity and versatility to offer a wide range of services, and the expertise and can-do attitude of its personnel allows it to successfully tackle challenging contracts and come up with innovative solutions to complex problems.

GSS was founded in 1989 to provide high quality plant and labour to the Royal Navy and the maritime construction industry, and quickly proved its worth.

However an injection of fresh purpose was added in 2005, when the managing director took part in a management buy-out, which led to an expansion of the fleet, with bigger vessels and increased capabilities.

The management buy-out also saw GSS diversify successfully into other markets and undergo significant growth, more than doubling its workforce in just four years. With this growth as marine consultants as well as marine contractors, the company has been moving more and more into long-term, large-scale contracts, while still retaining the capacity to handle smaller one-off jobs.

Internationally, GSS is currently supporting dredging and construction operations in Sierra Leone, oilfield work in Nigeria, and marine support and construction in Australia. In 2011 the company was assisting pipe-laying work in Papua New Guinea.

Closer to home, the opening of an office in Holland has proved productive, with an increasing role in the Dutch, Danish and European market and penetration of the rapidly expanding market in offshore renewables in the Baltic.

Whatever the scale or location of the contract, all GSS’s projects are underwritten by the continual drive for quality which has proved such a big attraction for clients.