TPT November 2009

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Industry News
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NORWEGIAN cased-hole logging company,
TecWel, is the first company to move into
the Energy Development Centre at the
Aberdeen Science and Energy Park – which
was officially opened by John Swinney
MSP, cabinet secretary for finance and
sustainable growth.
TecWel UK was established exactly
a year ago with oil and gas specialist,
Chris Nussbaum as its chief executive.
It is celebrating a year of success – and
its first birthday – by relocating to bigger,
customised premises at Aberdeen’s state of
the art centre, built to boost research and
innovation in Scotland's energy sector.
TecWel UK chief executive officer Chris
Nussbaum is delighted with the company’s
first year’s progress and was keen to
establish his growing business at the new
Energy Development Centre.
“The EDC is ideally located at Bridge
of Don, Aberdeen,” he says, “a perfect
location for technology-based companies
like TecWel. It provides us with high-quality
office, workshop and laboratory space, and
our neighbours will be similarly-focused,
high tech growth companies in all areas of
the energy sector.
“Our new location gives easy access
to our oil and gas clients in Aberdeen and
beyond, and we can avoid the burden of
higher-cost city centre rents while enjoying
an excellent and attractive work environment.
The transport infrastructure is superb from
here and, importantly, we are close to the
airport for our international business trips.”
TecWel’s Aberdeen base serves the UK,
Danish and Dutch sectors of the North Sea oil
and gas industry. TecWel specialises in well
integrity and production optimisation surveys,
and currently also has bases in Norway, the
UAE, the USA and Malaysia; its expertise
is based around advanced ultrasound
technologies, and many of its existing clients
operate in the UK North Sea sector.
Chris Nussbaum has grown TecWel UK
from a standing start a year ago to a staff
of nine today.
“Despite the global economic downturn,”
he says, “we have bucked the trend and
developed TecWel UK into an exciting growth
company with nine staff – and now we have
room at the EDC for further growth. We are
actively recruiting at present and expect to
appoint another four staff by the end of 2009.”
TecWel is an award-winning company
with its unique Well Leak Detector (WLD)
technology – an ultrasonic downhole leak
detection service, and the only one in the
world of its kind; one of its current customers,
BP, uses it extensively in Alaska. At the end
of 2007, BP was reporting savings to date
of more than $27mn, thanks to the TecWel
ultrasound leak detector.
The WLD is widely acclaimed and has
been deployed in more than 500 well locations
around the world – saving millions of dollars
in rig workover time for its operators.
“This kind of technological success is
the way forward for TecWel,” says Chris
Nussbaum, “and the EDC is just the right
base for us as we develop both in the UKCS
offshore and internationally.”
TecWel AS – Norway
Fax: +47 5551 8015
Email:
Website:
Downhole specialist celebrates
its first birthday at new premises
Technip second quarter results show promising outlook
 Chris Nussbaum, CEO of TecWel (UK) Limited
(third from left), with the TecWel UK team
TECHNIP’s board of directors have
approved the company’s unaudited second
quarter 2009 consolidated accounts.
Thierry Pilenko, chairman and chief
executive officer, said: “Our second quarter
performance illustrates our 2009 priorities:
good project execution, focus on profitability
and selective order intake. We are,
accordingly, able to improve our outlook for
2009. We now expect moderate growth in
subsea full-year revenues and operating
margins towards 18%, at the upper end of
our initial outlook.”
He said the company’s onshore/offshore
profitability continues to improve year-on-
year and it now expects group revenues of
around €6.4bn, also at the upper end of the
initial outlook.
In the second quarter Subsea execution
was again excellent, leading to revenues
above expectations and a good operating
margin.
“Onshore/Offshore, we continued to
deliver on our major projects – for example
in Qatar we have handed over Rasgas
3, Train 6 and Qatargas 2, Train 5 to our
clients and in Saudi Arabia we reached final
completion on the Yansab ethylene plant.
We continued to carefully manage our cost
base and our cashflow, and used our strong
balance sheet to acquire a replacement for
our Apache pipelay vessel.
“Our backlog reflects our policy to
maintain a balanced business portfolio.
Subsea order intake has averaged over
€550mn per quarter for the last three
quarters. Onshore, we announced in July
(for third quarter) two major awards for
the Jubail refinery project. This is a project
we know well, having done the FEED and
worked closely with the clients for the past
three years to align the overall project
costs with their objectives. With continued
uncertainty in the global economic situation,
our clients remain prudent in their final
investment decisions and focused on
reducing project costs. The combination
so far this year of a recovery in oil prices
and significant deflation on equipment,
bulk, construction and vessel costs are
rendering projects more economical and,
as a consequence, our tendering activity
has been increasing.
“For the remainder of the year we will
focus on project execution and target
contracts of all sizes that reflect Technip’s
strengths. In an environment that is still
volatile Technip will stick to its strategic
priorities, maintain investment in new
assets and R&D, focusing on the Group’s
key differentiating attributes.”
Technip – France
Fax: +33 01477 82588
Email:
Website: