Expro Group Strengthens Asia Pacific Position With the Strategic Acquisition of PTI Assets

Oilfield services provider Expro Group Australia Pty Ltd, a part of Expro International Group PLC recently announced the acquisition of the assets of Production Testers International (PTI) as well as its stake in the joint venture company Swire Production Testers (SPT) for an undisclosed sum. This strategic move positions the Expro Group as a major niche supplier of fast track, low cost, early production and marginal field development services in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions.

With an operational base in Batam (Indonesia), the acquisition demonstrates the Expro Group's long-term commitment to growing its market position in Asia Pacific, and enhances its Indonesian infrastructure to regional clients through the creation of PT Expro Indonesia. The Expro Group provides Asia Pacific clients with fast track access to its full complement of global service capabilities at a time when gas developments are being approved and marginal oil fields are becoming more economic to unlock. The Group's market leading services in subsurface monitoring systems, subsea intervention tooling, power connectors, cased hole services, high temperature data acquisition and well perforating systems are well suited to the current Asia Pacific market profile.

"The earnings and assets of PTI and SPT are highly synergistic with the Expro Group's own profile and further strengthen our revenue ratio derived from the more secure production phase of the business," commented Simon Ashton, Region Director - Asia Pacific. "We believe that the timing of this acquisition will enable the Expro Group to benefit strongly from the upturn in regional demand that we are seeing in 2000/01. PTI's people and assets fit well within the Group's social architecture and its geographical distribution enhances our earnings whilst also providing opportunities for cost reductions. In addition we are getting people of a high calibre who can only strengthen our overall service capabilities."

"The acquisition has been made at a time when demand for production engineering services is increasing and resources - in terms of both people and hardware - are beginning to trade at a premium. Operators are seeking to take advantage of the higher oil prices at the well head and of the greater confidence in terms of price stability", he added.

Swire Production Testers (SPT) is a joint venture with Swire Pacific Offshore Holdings Limited. Its flagship 60,000 BOPD Jack Up Mobile Offshore Production Unit, currently stationed in the Middle East, has tremendous potential for the Expro Group which services and maintains a number of other barge-mounted and land-based production systems around the world. PTI has established itself as a market leader in these specialist services in the Asia Pacific region and was involved in the innovative Wandoo EPF for Ampolex offshore in Australia as well as the highly successful Nan Nuan EWT offshore for Shell in Thailand.

Commenting on the acquisition, Dave Bowman, Area Manager for South Asean said: "We now have a greatly enhanced production system asset base located in Batam offering low cost, high quality maintenance, logistics, fabrication and support to the region, complimenting our existing Singapore presence." He added: "We have been following this opportunity for some time and we are delighted to have finalised details of the acquisition at this time. It will certainly be a significant contributor to our future earnings with an order book that is growing swiftly."

Garth Whitehead, MD of PTI commented: "PTI is pleased to have reached an agreement with the Expro Group. Expro's profile and culture is very compatible with our own and I'm sure that with its extensive range of cost effective technologies, access to capital and its service distribution infrastructure, Expro will be able to take the business to a new level both in the Asia Pacific region and the Middle East." (*)