Winners of Entrepreneur of the Year 2013

RNS Number : 8694W

Plexus Holdings Plc

01 February 2013

 



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

1 February 2013

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

Winners of 'Entrepreneur of the Year 2013' Award at Grant Thornton's Quoted Company Awards

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 its CEO and founder, Ben Van Bilderbeek has been awarded the 'Entrepreneur of the Year 2013' award at the annual Grant Thornton Quoted Company Awards, presented on 30 January 2013 at the Natural History Museum in London.

Plexus is an AIM quoted UK oil and gas engineering company which has pioneered a safer, more cost effective, reliable and technically superior wellhead using its proprietary POS-GRIP® technology.  Mr Van Bilderbeek invented the friction grip method of wellhead engineering, and its first patents date from 1997. He has more than forty years' experience in the industry in engineering and management roles and previously held senior positions with Vetco Offshore Industries (now owned by GE), Dril-Quip and Ingram Cactus. Ben went on to form his own oil and gas consultancy in 1982 and in 1986 he founded Plexus and went on to merge with Ingram Cactus Co. which was later acquired by Cameron. Ben subsequently invented, developed and commercialised POS-GRIP technology, and Plexus Holdings plc was admitted to the London Stock Exchange AIM market in December 2005.

Increasingly, major oil and gas companies are using Plexus' proprietary wellhead equipment as the best available and safest technology ('BAST') solution for HP/TH 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, to name a few, which is a testament to the technical and safety benefits to be derived from the technology.

Importantly, Plexus has established a Joint Industry Project at the request of a number of major oil and gas operators to take its POS-GRIP technology from the surface to subsea, and to address a number of systemic design deficiencies, which came into focus post the Macondo incident in the Gulf of Mexico. 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.

Plexus believes that the industries awareness and acceptance of the friction-grip method of engineering over a range of applications will continue to ensure that its organic business will grow, whilst a range of exciting strategic opportunities will present themselves in the future.

The Entrepreneur of the Year 2013 award recognises the entrepreneur at the helm of a young growing company whose flair, professionalism, dedication and opportunism has radically improved the trading prospects and the status of the company. 

CEO Ben van Bilderbeek said, "I am delighted to accept this award on behalf of my management team and staff who have helped to build Plexus to where it is today. We all look forward to focusing on delivering the many value creating opportunities that will present themselves in the future."

**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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