"We have put in place a strategic plan to service the offshore Taranaki fields for the next five to 10 years – part of which involves creating a maintenance base in Nelson to service the increasing number of supply vessels," managing director Calum Maclean said.
"We definitely see our involvement in the oil and gas sector growing."
Based in the northern South Island, Unimar has grown quickly since being established in late 2004. The oil and gas sector accounts for about 80 percent of its work, and the company expects that work to keep growing in the short to medium term.
As well as its Nelson head office, the company also operates bases at Shakespeare's Bay, a deepwater port southeast of Nelson, and in New Plymouth, the hub of the Taranaki region.
Unimar's first oil and gas contract was with the $NZ1080 ($A935 million) Kupe project.
Late last year, it carried out a seabed survey of the shallow waters off the south Taranaki coast for Kupe lead contractor Technip and operator Origin Energy.
Technip and Origin were considering the best route ashore for the products pipeline and services umbilical from the proposed production facilities site about 30km offshore. Unimar's survey helped pinpoint that route and the marine services outfit was also involved in seabed clearance work near the south Taranaki shore.
In addition, Unimar more recently provided a four-point temporary mooring spread in Kupe's central field area at the production platform site, where the jacket was successfully installed last month.
Unimar's next big petroleum contract was with the $US269 million ($A310 million) Tui Area crude oil project.
Here the company helped mainly with the installation of the mooring system for Tui's floating production storage and offtake vessel Umuroa.
Operator Australian Worldwide Exploration contracted Unimar to manage the entry into New Zealand of the deepwater installation and anchor-handling vessel Normand Installer.
Unimar assisted the vessel and its foreign crew with immigration, customs, and work permits, and helped supply additional New Zealand crew.
"AWE engaged Unimar to establish a shore base for the storage and assembly of the mooring systems at Shakespeare Bay, and to coordinate all plant, shore labour, crane-age and loadouts onto the Normand Installer for the mooring installation," Maclean said.
"We also worked with vessel owners, SBM of Monaco, and Solstad of Norway, and were able to help them with some work for the vessel's next project in Malaysia."
Norwegian company Prosafe, the owner and operator of the Umuroa, also engaged Unimar for unloading 9km of chain and nine anchors, as well as additional temporary mooring spread and rigging equipment.
