General Information and History of COES
China Offshore Engineering Solutions Ltd (COES) historically know as Shanghai Salvage Company (SSC) is the state owned international offshore marine construction arm of the Chinese Government Ministry of Transport and was founded in August 1951 in charge of salvage, wreck removal, oil recovery, marine environment protection and other offshore construction engineering activities initially focusing on projects in the vast region from Lian Yun Gang to the boundary province of Fu Jian and Guang Dong. COES now is truly an international player.
Being state owned, affords COES the enviable position of having exceptionally strong financial backing which in turn has the added advantage of enabling SCC to offer prospective clients absolute organizational and financial stability when undertaking complex international salvage and wreck recovery type projects.
This places COES in the enviable position of being able to take greater commercial risk in terms of contractual project liabilities assumed and also the corresponding indemnities it is able to offer clients by way of ‘Security of Performance’. In this regard, COES is committed to undertaking all complex projects in a manner that ensures certainty of final out-turn project costs for its clients on a fixed price all-inclusive Lump sum basis at highly competitive rates.
COES has an excellent international reputation and is the most advanced and largest offshore marine salvage company in China with a fleet of over 44 vessels and a variety of equipment. Over the years since its formation in 1951, COES has salvaged more than 1,700 vessels in distress of all sorts, removed more than 1,000 wrecks and recovered over 18,000 tons of spilled-oil. COES has conducted business around the world, including Asia-Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, Africa, Middle East, South America and North Sea involving offshore oil & gas services and ocean-going towing.
COES Business within the offshore oil & gas sector
Offshore Platform/Jacket Installation
Prior COES heavy-lifting experiences and crane vessel operations positioned the company to readily enter the emerging new markets for offshore oil & gas field developments in China in the early 1980s. From then on, offshore platform / jacket installation became an important business of COES. Its business has since expanded throughout Southeast Asia, Gulf of Mexico and to the North Sea.
Subsea Umbilical/Riser/Flying Leads/Manifold Installation and IMR
Due to COES excellent diving experiences, its offshore business has now expanded to subsea installations, inspections, maintenance and repairs. Additionally, a specialised Diving Support Vessel has joined the fleet making COES more competitive.
AHTS/PSV/Field Service
There are 25 AHTS/PSV vessels in the COES fleet serving infield for multiple oil companies, and continuously earning a good reputation in performance and QHSE.
Top class International Towing
There are seven high BHP ocean-going tugs in the COES that have operated successfully all around the world since the 1980s and are the preferred towing capability of choice by many international drilling companies.
Specialised Staff
There are around 2,000 employees in COES, composed of salvage and structural engineers, equipment engineers, naval engineers, DP captain, officers, and marine engineers. COES has a large diving team, doing air diving, mixed gas diving and the most complex of saturation diving. Almost all staff have real salvage experiences having worked offshore at project sites and they are taught and instructed by senior generation professional mariners and specialists. This is viewed as a particular strength in terms of having a united team. Additionally, most of the COES workforce have been with the company all of their careers which makes for a stable and resilient workforce.
High Performance Vessels and Equipment
The COES fleet consists of heavy lifting crane vessel, diving support vessel, cable laying vessels, high BHP Ocean going tugs, anchor handling and towing tugs and platform supply vessel. The most advanced crane ship is CHUANG LI, 4500mt lifting capacity with DP 3 system. The second crane ship is WEI LI, 3000mt lifting capacity with DP 2 system.
Save for the above vessels, COES owns and operates a 3000m working depth ROV, oil recovery equipment and 2 sets of state of the art saturation diving system.
Unique Saturation Diving Team
Through many years and generations of study, lessons learned and as a consequence of substantial contributions from valued partners - COES has developed an exceptional world class saturation diving team and is recognised as the only Chinese company that can perform commercial saturation diving in China. COES’s diving record reaches to 313.5 meters. COES owns 200m and 300m saturation diving systems which are always ready for operation. COES’s saturation diving capability and constant state of readiness to be mobilised is a further illustration of the degree of professionalism and skills of this offshore marine salvage company.
Accreditation
We operate to ensure strict compliance with all necessary regulatory regimes



