USA: Tetra Buys UK’s Rig Cooling Specialist

TETRA Technologies, Inc. has acquired Optima Solutions Holdings Limited (“Optima”) for GBP 40 million (approximately $62.7 million equivalent) plus contingent consideration to be paid in the future depending on profitability.

Optima is a leading provider of rig cooling services and associated products that suppress heat generated by the high-rate flaring of hydrocarbons during offshore well test operations. Established in 1999, Optima has grown rapidly and has served a diversified customer base in over forty countries from operational bases in Aberdeen, UK, and Perth, Australia. Optima’s expectations for continued growth are underpinned by excellent long-term relationships with key customers, increasing international expansion, and a robust market outlook.

Optima’s rig cooling systems provide safety from the extreme temperatures generated during flaring operations and enable high-rate well test operations to be performed without compromising installation integrity, installation operations and personnel safety. Optima’s rig cooling packages employ patented nozzle technology and a wide range of associated pumping equipment that provide users with exceptional performance, reliability and safety.

“With this acquisition, we are accelerating our strategic goal of offering our customers a broader range of well completion and production testing services, and we are expanding our presence in many significant global markets. Optima is a strong complement to our existing portfolio of well completion and production testing services, and we believe we can add value for Optima’s customers through our experience in, and understanding of, those businesses. We are impressed with the relationships and market position that Optima has built and intend to support them within the TETRA family. In addition, we expect this acquisition to be accretive to our consolidated earnings in 2012,” commented Stuart M. Brightman, TETRA’s President and Chief Executive Officer.

Managing Director and founder of Optima, Jamie Oag, stated, “We are very pleased with our new ownership structure. We see this as the next phase in our strategic plan, increasing Optima’s global presence in a manner consistent with our best in class safety and service quality performance standards.” Mr. Oag went on to say that, “Both my fellow founder, Peter Bartholomew, and I, will remain with Optima, along with the remainder of our experienced management and operations teams.”

Simmons & Company International served as financial advisor to TETRA and Ernst & Young served as financial advisor to Optima.

TETRA is geographically diversified oil and gas services company focused on completion fluids and other products, after-frac flow back and production well testing, wellhead compression, and selected offshore services including well plugging and abandonment, decommissioning, and diving.

Source

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Westshore Shipbrokers: Ultra-Deepwater, What is Next for the Shipowner? (Brazil)

(Westshore Shipbrokers AS)-  Following in Petrobras’ footsteps, Shell Brasil is about to embark on its > 2,000m water depth portfolio. Drilling will continue into the second quarter of 2012 in the Santos Basin. On the one hand, it’s just another  oil major doing something not much different from other operations in the likes of the US Gulf of Mexico. But put into the Brazilian context, it’s much more than that, it’s a milestone for the nation in nearing its offshore exploration and production ambitions, but why is that?

Deep water exploration characterizes the offshore industry in Brazil yet this is actually only the second time an IOC will be involved in an exploratory campaign that breaks the 2,000m water depth threshold, and at  quite a distance from shore. Moreover this is being done with a moored semisubmersible and on a pre-salt prospect. The challenges involved with such a combination are huge and require a complex logistical  strategy to ensure that when the rig is on location and ready to spud, not the smallest detail is left behind. However we are unlikely to see the last of this type of drilling scenario, Petrobras and other lOCs will follow.

The next piece in the puzzle is shore-based infrastructure, i.e. the demand for better port facilities and plants, berthing facilities which are offshore appropriate and more of them. It all plays into a cycle – the further  the offshore operations are from land, the larger the drilling unit required. Bigger drilling units need bigger vessels to support it; in turn they need larger and better equipped ports to support them. The bigger ports need  larger fluid and dry bulk plants which need more trucks for transportation and so on. It all boils down to infrastructure and the very pressing need to get it up to the standard needed.,

The larger drilling units in particular need more materials like drilling and completion fluids and this will drive the change in demand for logistics resources – including the demand for offshore support vessels. In addition, the shortage of adequate port infrastructure means these vessels need to provide storage for the materials in addition to their transport function.

This move towards increased capacity per vessel, as opposed to increased number of vessels is somewhat new. Although Brazil has dominated the global UDW scene, it was only about five years ago that Petrobras started searching for PSVs > 3.000 dwt. What we see now is a preference for vessels up to 4.500 dwt – and this will only increase. Moreover, the lOCs are on the same path. That being said, we are not predicting the demise of the smaller PSV in the Brazilian market, far from it. The future for PSVs up to 3.000 dwt seems steady, slightly increased for those around 3.000 dwt but the real growth is in the larger segment of the  market – vessels of 4,500 dwt and above.

The future is less easy to predict for the AHTS. Reason being, although the demand is related to the water depth, it also depends on  the type of rig – moored or DP. Most operations carried out in water depths of 1.000 to 2,000 meters in Brazil have been done with moored semis – in excess of 80%. The AHTSs in this niche have ranged between 160 tbp to 195 tbp.

For operations in deeper water, larger vessels are needed. Petrobras for one has chartered several vessels in the 21,000 class and Shell Brasil has awarded contracts to two Maersk L class vessels (260 tbp). Therefore, although deeper operations may at first sight be perceived as a predominantly  DP-rig market. In Brazil this is not the full story. There is a balance between DP and moored units in the market and the country counts on the presence of a number of mooring specialists working in such water depths. We expect the demand in the AHTS market to remain strong for 160tbp- 195tbp, perhaps increase slightly. And for the >200tbp we expect to see a steep increase, mainly due to the fact that the activity is new and therefore the number of vessels on hire at the moment is low.

Written by Westshore Shipbrokers AS‘ Staff

Original Article

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