Winners of Best Oil & Gas Plc Award

RNS Number : 1424Y

Plexus Holdings Plc

19 February 2013

 



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

19 February 2013

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

Winners of 'Best Oil and Gas Plc' Award at the Stock Market Awards 2013

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, is pleased to announce that it has been awarded the 'Best Oil and Gas Plc' award at the annual Stock Market Wire Awards, presented on 18 February 2013 at the HAC, Armoury House in London.

The Best Oil and Gas Plc award recognises a publically listed oil and gas company which balances risk with reward to generate the earnings or dividend growth that in turn yield the optimal total shareholder return. The award is stated to have been judged on excellent financial performance and strategic and operational development and a robust total shareholder return during 2012.

Plexus has pioneered a safer, more cost effective, reliable and technically superior wellhead using its proprietary POS-GRIP® technology.  Increasingly, major oil and gas companies are utilising Plexus' proprietary wellhead equipment as the best available and safest technology ('BAST') solution for High Pressure/High Temperature ('HP/HT') oil and gas exploration applications.   Plexus to date has supplied its POS-GRIP wellhead systems on more than 300 wells worldwide, operated by global blue chip companies including BG, BP, ConocoPhillips, Gaz de France, Maersk, Repsol, Shell, and Statoil, which is a testament to the technical and safety benefits to be derived from the technology.

Plexus also has established a Joint Industry Project ('JIP') at the request of a number of major oil and gas operators to develop and commercialise a new and safer subsea wellhead, utilising Plexus' patented POS-GRIP technology. The JIP is focussed on developing a new subsea wellhead, HGSS, to address key technical issues and requirements highlighted by regulators following the Gulf of Mexico incident in April 2010.   The new 'HGSS' wellhead design will incorporate an 18 ¾-in. full-bore system, rated to 15,000 psi and 350°F and upgradeable to 20,000 psi and 450°F; 4 million lbs of instant casing hanger lockdown capacity; annulus monitoring and bleed-off capability to address sustained casing pressure, with diagnostic and remedial capability; and the ability to open and reseal the casing annulus to enable remedial cement jobs. Plexus believes that this design will in time be proven to be BAST for subsea wellhead applications.

CEO Ben van Bilderbeek said, "This award is yet another endorsement of the great strides Plexus is making within the oil and gas services arena and evidence that Plexus' reputation within the oil and gas industry as a supplier of best in class wellhead equipment, in terms of operational performance and safety, is gaining traction.  With this in mind, I am delighted to accept this award on behalf of the Company's management, fellow employees and stakeholders who have been incremental in building Plexus to where it is today." 

**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]
Jon Fitzpatrick	Cenkos Securities PLC	Tel: [phone]
Ken Fleming	Cenkos Securities PLC	Tel: [phone]
Felicity Edwards	St Brides Media & Finance Ltd	Tel: [phone]
Frank Buhagiar	St Brides Media & Finance Ltd	Tel: [phone]

Notes to Editors:

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 for exploration and production applications.  Based in Aberdeen, with offices in London, Cairo, Kuala Lumpur 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.  Importantly, the Company is focussed on extending its proprietary technology into an increasing number of subsea applications.  In line with this, in March 2011 the Company launched an initiative to develop a new subsea wellhead design, HGSS™, utilising its friction-grip technology in collaboration with key oil and gas operators and service companies. Royal Dutch Shell, Wintershall, Maersk, Tullow Oil, ENI, Oil States Industries Inc., TOTAL and the UK entity of the world's largest offshore drilling company have joined the initiative to date. The HGSS 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, annulus pressure monitoring and access for 'bleed off' capability to address sustained casing pressure ('SCP') issues which are recognised by the API as a serious industry problem, and rigid metal annular seal technology qualified to match the performance of premium casing.  Development is expected to be completed by mid 2013 calendar year.

To date, POS-GRIP wellhead systems have been used or selected to be used in over 250 oil and gas wells by international companies including Apache Energy Australia, BHP Billiton, BG International, Bowleven plc, BP, Brunei Shell Petroleum, Cairn Energy, Centrica, ConocoPhillips, Dana Petroleum, Dubai Petroleum, GDF SUEZ, Global Santa Fe, Maersk, Niko Resources, Petro-Canada Trinidad & Tobago, Red Sea Petroleum Operating Company, Repsol, RWE, Senergy Limited, Shell Egypt, StatoilHydro, Silverstone Energy, Talisman Energy, Tullow Oil, and Wintershall.

 

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