“West Africa has endless opportunities within the oil & gas industry as its potential has been tapped only recently”, says Mark Severn who has been managing Sales and Business Development for Unique Group in Nigeria and West Africa for the last 2 years.
Mark has big plans for the company’s JV operations (Unique Charkin System Ltd) in line with the demand and ongoing project requirements throughout the region as well as in sub-Saharan Africa. Unique Group is also the only supplier company that has a permanent base in Nigeria and the team is available to service customer requirements on a 24/7 basis.
Reflecting on his career thus far, Mark says “I started working in the commercial diving industry back in 1990 in the UK and subsequently moved to the Middle East in 1992. Since then my career has taken me through the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe within both technical diving and management roles at various subsea companies. After a career spanning over 25 years in the subsea oil & gas industry, I started working at Unique Group as Sales Manager for the West Africa region.”
Through his role, he has introduced Unique Group’s specialist offerings to customers in the region, both existing and new. “My role (pre-Covid times) involved meeting many new people and skillsets with travel around the most remote and untapped areas of West Africa’s oil and gas operations”, he further adds when probed about what he enjoys the most about his role.
“Since Unique Group is a powerhouse of leading integrated solutions for the global oil & gas, renewables, subsea and defence industries, I work in conjunction with the Group’s global offices including Cape Town and Sharjah in order to fulfill customer orders and project deliveries. We are a huge global team and working with technical personnel who are extremely knowledgeable in their respective line of business is one of the most enjoyable aspects of my role.”
Speaking about the popularity of the Group’s diving systems in the region, Mark adds: “Most of our equipment has been purchased by our clients due to our strict adherence to OGP 411 and IMCA guidelines”
“When we build our commercial diving systems in South Africa, we not only follow all the diving guidance in the industry but our manufacturing division works closely with the customers to enable them to better understand the requirements they need in order to meet the requirements set in place for working with the Oil and Gas majors.”
He is presently working closely with local authorities in developing contracts for the mapping of inland and offshore waterways for safe navigable channels. “Most companies in the region are familiar with our commercial diving systems as we’ve been in the industry for over 25 years. My aim now is to promote our engineering capabilities as well as our Survey Equipment, ASV, Buoyancy and Load Testing solutions.”
In addition, Mark is closely working with the partner team at Charkin to deliver high-quality training to the maritime and oil & gas communities in Nigeria. He also looks forward to creating and training localised teams to support him in all his responsibilities and other technical requirements in conjunction with the Charkin team.
To contact our Nigeria team for inquiries, email nigeriasales@uniquegroup.com
