Plexus Regulatory News (POS)

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

18 September 2014

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

Plexus Strengthens Board - New USA Non-Exec Director Appointment

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, known for its safety, time and cost saving capabilities, announces the appointment of Charles Edward Jones to the Board of Plexus as a Non-Executive Director with immediate effect.

Mr Jones' role will include advising the Board in respect of interacting with US oil and gas operators and service companies, industry bodies, and regulators as Plexus seeks to roll-out its best in class wellhead equipment into new geographies and expand its POS-GRIP based applications in the exploration, production and ultimately subsea markets worldwide.  

Charles has over 30 years of senior management and Board experience having established and grown a number of highly successful engineered-product companies in the energy sector. In 2007, Charles became CEO of Houston-based Forum Oilfield Technology ('FOT'), a global oilfield products company and led its growth up to a successful merger with three other companies in 2010 to create Forum Energy Technologies, a global company with Drilling, Production and Subsea products. The enlarged business completed an IPO in 2012 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: FET) with revenues of more than US$1.5 billion. Charles remained as President - Drilling, Downhole, and Subsea of FET until August 2013.

Prior to FET, Charles was COO of Hydril Company LP, a privately owned US based drilling and downhole products company, and in 2000 led an IPO of the company to raise capital for investment in the engineering and manufacture of products associated with North American natural gas and ultra-deepwater drilling. Hydril invested over US$250 million in product development and capacity expansion, growing revenues from c.US$90 million to over US$500 million, and was subsequently sold to Tenaris in a transaction valued at US$2.1 billion. After the sale of Hydril, Charles acted as a consultant to the CEO of Tenaris and advised on the sale of the Pressure Control division which was eventually sold to General Electric for US$1.4 billion.

Before joining Hydril, Charles served as Director of Subsea Businesses for Cooper Cameron Corporation where he developed the global subsea production business.

Charles is a graduate of Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Programme and holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Houston. In 2013 he was appointed Chairman of the Petroleum Equipment Suppliers Association in the USA.

Plexus' CEO Ben Van Bilderbeek said, "Charles' extensive experience and proven track record in the US and Gulf of Mexico oil and gas equipment and services sector will be invaluable to Plexus, as we continue to build and develop a leading global wellhead company strategy to deliver best in class solutions for the exploration, production, subsea and HP/HT sectors to world-class oil and gas operators. As a British company we have enjoyed much success in the jack-up exploration HP/HT arena in the North Sea so that Plexus is now viewed as the go-to supplier. In recent years we have moved from strength to strength delivering our 'friction-grip' POS-GRIP wellhead solutions worldwide, predominantly in Africa, Asia and Oceana. We are in the process of rolling out our global growth strategy, which has already seen us establish an Asian hub with bases in Singapore and Malaysia and it is our long-term objective to expand this further across the Americas. In this vein, we believe Charles will provide key strategic direction to the Board in respect of interacting with US oil and gas operators and service companies, industry bodies, and regulators as we work towards identifying ways of offering POS-GRIP to the American markets.-

Full name: Charles Edward Jones

Age: 55

Previous Directorships held in the past 5 years: Forum Oilfield Technologies

There are no further disclosures to be made in accordance with Schedule 2 (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies.

**ENDS**

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

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, 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. 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, TOTAL, Tullow Oil, ENI, Oil States Industries Inc., 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. The design process has now been completed, and prototype testing is due for completion end 2014, with the running of a prototype in the field targeted for the second half of 2015.

To date, POS-GRIP wellhead systems have been used or selected to be used in over 300 oil and gas wells by international companies including AGR, 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.