Plexus Regulatory News (POS)

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

30 September 2014

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

Winner of 'Commitment to Innovative Use of Research and Development' Award at the Northern Star Business Awards 2014

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 on 25 September 2014 it accepted the 'Commitment to Innovative Use of Research and Development' award ('the Award') at the 11th annual Northern Star Business Awards 2014, the flagship event for the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce. 

The Award recognises Plexus' long standing commitment to research and development ('R&D') which underpins the growing success of Plexus' proprietary friction grip method of engineering called POS-GRIP®. Plexus was also nominated as a finalist in the Outstanding Contribution to the Energy Sector category in recognition of its pioneering, safer, more cost effective, reliable and technically superior wellhead based on its proprietary POS-GRIP® technology.

The Company continues to work on a number of on-going R&D projects, most notably a Joint Industry Project ('JIP') to develop and commercialise a new and safer subsea wellhead, utilising its patented POS-GRIP technology. Supported by a number of major oil and gas operators - BG, ENI, Maersk, Shell, Total, Tullow, and Wintershall, the JIP is focussed on developing a new subsea wellhead, HGSS, to address key technical issues and requirements highlightedby regulators following the Gulf of Mexico incident in April 2010. Plexus believes that this new design will in time be proven to be the best available and safest technology ('BAST') for subsea wellhead applications.

CEO Ben van Bilderbeek said, "This latest award, which follows the 'Best Oil and Gas Plc' award at the 2013 annual Stock Market Wire Awards and the 'Entrepreneur of the Year 2013' award at the annual Grant Thornton Quoted Company Awards, recognises Plexus' significant and ongoing commitment to investing in R&D. As a result of which, we have developed best-in-class surface wellhead equipment based on our proprietary POS-GRIP® technology and in turn become the dominant supplier of wellhead equipment for the HP/HT jack-up exploration market in the North Sea. We continue to invest in R&D as we look to apply our POS-GRIP technology to solve widely-acknowledged challenges in the HP/HT space. To date we have invested £3m to develop a new and safer subsea wellhead, utilising Plexus' patented POS-GRIP technology. Thanks to this investment, having now finalised the design in conjunction with our industry partners we will soon be building a prototype, and remain on track for first time installation in 2015.

"At the ceremony, Sir Ian Wood, author of the recently published 'UKCS Maximising Recovery Review: Final Report' received a lifetime achievement award for successfully building one of the UK's largest oil supply chain companies. I sincerely hope that the excellent report encourages more investment in the UKCS, and believe that Plexus is ideally placed to capitalise on a resurgence in North Sea exploration activity. I also hope that the settling of the devolution question will now also bring additional interest in and support for exploration in the Scottish North Sea region. Finally, we could not have won this award without the dedication and hard work of the Company's management, fellow employees and stakeholders all of whom have played a vital role in building Plexus to where it is today and which lays such firm foundations for a very exciting future."

**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.