CHC to take over Babcock’s oil and gas business

CHC Group, an offshore helicopter services provider, has entered into a conditional agreement for the acquisition of the Oil and Gas aviation business of Babcock International Group.

The business provides offshore oil and gas crew transportation services in the UK, Denmark, and Australia.

It is headquartered in Aberdeen (UK), employs over 500 people, and operates around 30 aircraft across its three locations.

The deal, which is subject to pre-closing conditions, is expected to complete in the second calendar quarter of 2021.

It is intended that CHC will seek clearances for the transaction from antitrust authorities in the UK and Australia, though completion is not conditional upon such clearances being received, CHC and Babcock said on Thursday.

Another example of acquisitions in the offshore helicopter services sector would be the merger between Bristow and Era Group, which was completed in June 2020.

The merger of these two created the world’s largest operator of S92, AW189, and AW139 model helicopters with a total fleet of over 300 aircraft.

When it comes to the market situation, the global demand for helicopter transport to offshore facilities plunged in 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, a Rystad Energy report from December 2020 showed.

Rystad Energy estimated that offshore helicopter traffic would have declined by 15 per cent in 2020, dropping to 410 million passenger miles from 483 million passenger miles in 2019.