Appointment of President, North America

RNS Number : 0152D

Plexus Holdings Plc

22 October 2015

 



Plexus Holdings PLC / Index: AIM / Epic: POS / Sector: Oil equipment & services

22 October 2015

Plexus Holdings PLC ('Plexus' or 'the Company')

Appointment of President, North America

Plexus Holdings PLC, the AIM quoted oil and gas engineering services business and owner of the proprietary POS-GRIP® friction-grip method of wellhead engineering, announces the appointment of Lawrence P. Rucinski as President, North America, through his consultancy company Global Growth Partners LLC , initially for a minimum twelve month period. Mr Rucinski has over 30 years' experience in the subsea oil and gas sector having held several senior level leadership roles between 1984 through 2015 building FMC Technologies Inc. (NYSE:FTI) into a market leading global provider of wellhead equipment and services.  

Most recently, Mr. Rucinski held the position of Director, Sales & Marketing for the Global Subsea business unit of FMC Technologies Inc. and will provide immediate added value to the Company's strategic planning, specifically in North America and Asia.  This initiative is in line with Plexus' expansion into the large and growing Deepwater subsea technology sector through the recent launch of the Company's POS-GRIP Python™ Subsea Wellhead at Offshore Europe 2015. By addressing key technical issues and safety requirements highlighted by regulators following the Gulf of Mexico incident in April 2010, Plexus' Python™ Subsea Wellhead will provide a new best in class standard, and offers significant operational cost savings for customers in addition to increased safely and reliability.

As President, North America, Mr. Rucinski offers expansive Engineering Procurement Construction ('EPC') systems solutions expertise, business leadership, and longstanding global relationships with oil and gas companies, which we anticipate will create commercial relationships in North America as Plexus begins to look at expanding its growing international presence into this important oil and gas region.  In addition, Mr. Rucinski will specifically leverage his experience in Asia to support the Plexus Asian team in China, in conjunction with the Company's agreement with Chinese licensing partner Yantai Jereh Oilfield Services Group ('Jereh'), a US$6.9bn oil services provider, and Plexus' shallow water subsea and crossover wellhead production system collaboration agreement between China Oilfield Services Limited, Red Subsea Technologies and Jereh. Mr. Rucinski will also support ongoing business with Petronas where Plexus secured a licence through its local Plexus Products Asia company Joint Venture to manufacture and supply Plexus' POS-GRIP wellhead equipment in Malaysia. 

Mr. Rucinski has a strong knowledge base for oil and gas activities in Asia evidenced by his role as FMC's Managing Director & General Manager - Asia & Middle East Region from 2005 to 2014.  During this period he was responsible for creating a subsea project delivery hub in Asia including new manufacturing, project management and engineering capabilities resulting in the need to recruit over 2,000 local employees. He successfully led FMC Technologies as it secured new EPC project contracts during this same period with a combined value over US$3 billion, including Shell Malaysia (Gumusut), Shell Australia (Prelude), Chevron Australia (Wheatstone), Eni Indonesia (Jangkrik) and multiple projects for Woodside in Australia (90+ wells installed in Northwest Shelf Development).

Plexus' CEO Ben Van Bilderbeek said, "We are delighted to welcome Lawrence as President, North America at this exciting time for Plexus as we expand our international relationships and the POS-GRIP product range, particularly in the subsea and production wellhead arenas. I believe his highly relevant deep-water experience and proven management track record in international and USA business development will be invaluable to us following the launch  of our new Python Subsea wellhead and look to secure commercial opportunities for this new wellhead standard over the coming years. Lawrence will work with our Non-Executive Director Charles Jones, also based in Houston, to provide the Plexus Board with timely and accurate feedback on and implications of key developments in Houston, to further align our strategic direction for North America.

"The Python Subsea Wellhead has been developed as part of an industry wide project supported by leading oil and gas operators including Shell, Total, Maersk, BG, Tullow and Wintershall to name a few.  We believe our product will be the safest, most technically advanced and cost efficient product on the market, and Lawrence clearly recognises its potential and superior technical and safety features. Following its launch we aim to replicate the success we have enjoyed with our POS-GRIP jack-up exploration applications, which already have a dominant position in the HP/HT sectors in the North Sea.

"We are building a leading global wellhead company for the long term, delivering best in class solutions for the exploration, production, subsea and HP/HT sectors to world-class oil and gas operators.  Although the widely reported current volatile trading conditions and depressed oil price are clearly impacting on the industry as a whole at the present time, I remain confident that looking beyond this challenging period our superior enabling POS-GRIP technology is uniquely positioned to continue to win our proven science based argument for the need for wellheads to match the same performance standards as premium couplings whether at the surface or subsea.  I believe that this will result in Plexus becoming a major global wellhead and associated equipment supplier, whether trading as a principal or through major licencing partners such as Jereh, and I look forward to providing further updates on our progress."

**ENDS**

For further information please visit www.posgrip.com or contact:

Ben van Bilderbeek	Plexus Holdings PLC	Tel: [phone]
Graham Stevens	Plexus Holdings PLC	Tel: [phone]
Derrick Lee	Cenkos Securities PLC	Tel: [phone]
Nick Tulloch	Cenkos Securities PLC	Tel: [phone]
Felicity Winkles	St Brides Partners Ltd	Tel: [phone]
Frank Buhagiar	St Brides Partners Ltd	Tel: [phone]

**ENDS**

NOTES:

Plexus Holdings PLC

Plexus Holdings PLC, which began trading on AIM in December 2005, is an oil and gas engineering and services business, which supplies wellhead and mudline suspension equipment together with associated equipment and services for exploration and production applications. Based in Aberdeen, with offices in London, Cairo, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and a presence in Houston, Texas, it has developed and patented a friction-grip method of engineering for oil and gas field wellheads and connectors, POS-GRIP®, which involves deforming one tubular member against another to effect gripping and sealing.

The Company plans to accelerate the roll out of POS-GRIP wellhead equipment as a superior alternative to current technology and for it to become the future industry standard for wellhead design. In particular, the technology has advantages in High Pressure/High Temperature (HP/HT) and Extreme HP/HT (X-HP/HT) oil and gas environments, for which there is growing global demand and where Plexus is being increasingly recognised as the supplier of choice.

To date, POS-GRIP wellhead systems have been used or selected to be used in over 350 oil and gas wells by international companies including ADTI, AGR, Apache Energy Australia, BHP Billiton, BG International, BP, Brunei Shell Petroleum, Cairn Energy, Centrica, ConocoPhillips, Dana Petroleum, Dubai Petroleum, ENI, GDF SUEZ, Global Santa Fe, Maersk, Niko Resources, Petro-Canada Trinidad & Tobago, Premier Oil Norge, Red Sea Petroleum Operating Company, Repsol, RWE, Senergy Limited, Shell China, Shell Egypt, Statoil, Silverstone Energy, Talisman Energy, Total, Tullow Oil, and Wintershall.

Importantly, the Company is focussed on extending its proprietary POS-GRIP technology into an increasing number of subsea applications. In line with this, in March 2011 the Company launched a Joint Industry Project ('JIP') initiative to develop a new subsea wellhead design, the 'Python Subsea Wellhead' utilising its friction-grip technology in collaboration with key oil and gas operators and service companies. BG, Royal Dutch Shell, Wintershall, Maersk, TOTAL, Tullow Oil, ENI, Senergy, ADTI and Oil States Industries Inc. The JIP is nearing completion with final qualification testing of all key features of the product under way, and the resultant Python Subsea Wellhead design will include a combination of key features never before seen in a subsea wellhead which include being rated to 15,000 psi, 4,000,000 pounds of 'instant' casing lockdown capacity, and importantly rigid metal annular seal technology qualified to match the performance of premium connectors. The building of a single string Python Subsea Wellhead system prototype commenced in February, and was launched at the SPE Offshore Europe Exhibition and Conference in Aberdeen ('OE2015') in September 2015.

Plexus is an innovative technology company always looking for opportunities to apply its proprietary POS-GRIP friction grip method of engineering to new products both within and outside the oil and gas industry. For example Plexus have recently completed a JIP in conjunction with Maersk to develop a downhole HPHT Tieback connector which for the first time allows the reconnection of production casing to HPHT exploration and production wells. In addition the Company has developed and qualified a new product called "POS-SET Connector™ which is designed to re-establish a connection onto rough conductor casing previously cut above the seabed to facilitate tieback or abandonment operations. The market for permanent plugging and abandonment of wells is increasing in the North Sea and beyond, and could be an important new revenue stream for the company. 

 

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