I was just having my dry toast and marmalade and scouring through my paper and found this little article.
http://www.thisisnorthscotland.co.u...tentPK=19763196&folderPk=85744&pNodeId=150607
ROSS DEEPTECH CROSSES THE LINE TO JOIN NEPTUNE'S SUBSEA EMPIRE
08:50 - 04 February 2008
Last month, north-east Scottish energy engineering company Ross Deeptech was captured by Neptune Marine, an Australian group with designs on the North Sea subsea market, especially IRM (inspection, repair and maintenance) activities.
According to Neptune's CEO, Christian Lange, the changing nature of subsea contracting has left a vacuum in the marketplace that he feels his young company can exploit successfully.
He also believes that a specialist subsea dry welding technique developed by Neptune in Australia will prove attractive.
Lange had been scouting the North Sea for opportunities for about a year and entered negotiations with Ross Deeptech's managing director, Robert Ross, several months ago.
For Ross, the deal provides an excellent opportunity to cash in on a huge personal effort to build the Stonehaven-headquartered company, which has a significant capability in the fabrication of specialist offshore subsea structures and pioneering marine renewables devices.
Neptune listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2004. It was formed to invest in and develop an innovative underwater welding technology, then commercialise it.
Lange joined in February, 2006, he says to shake up the business - give it commercial direction - refocus it. The objective was to build a multifaceted subsea engineering business based on offshore oil &gas.
"This entailed from subsea engineering design, supporting EPIC contractors and the like, right through to performing inspection, repair and maintenance works ??? subsea production infrastructure, FPSOs, pipelines ??? the whole gamut," Lange told Energy.
"Six acquisitions have given us a core capability; all are predominantly Western Australian and support the North-west Shelf and Timor Sea sectors.
"Once we had built critical mass in Australia, our goal always was to move our model into the major offshore regions ??? US Gulf, Asia and the North Sea are our three main targets. This is about looking at specific opportunities; it's not about trying to re-create what we do in Perth."
So what is Neptune's key differentiator?
"At the technical level, it's our underwater dry weld technology, plus it's the ability to provide a total solution to customers for IRM without having to outsource to half-a-dozen or more subcontractors. That's our competitive advantage.
"We've had some great success in Perth and our goal is to be successful out of Aberdeen, too, with Ross Deeptech playing a key role."
Lange sees excellent opportunities in keeping mature infrastructure in good health.
"What you're seeing, and have done for 10 years now, is that the majors are selling down fields where primary production has taken been taken care of.
"They get passed to the Apaches of this world, who apply new technologies to extend the lives of producing assets. Meantime, infrastructure, which was only ever designed to last 20-30 years, now needs serious maintenance. And because of a history of cyclical and low-price oil until the last two years or so, that infrastructure really hasn't had a lot of attention ??? North Sea and globally.
"Our role is to fill a vacuum that others have let form. What you have is a situation where high/mid-level companies on the subsea side have seen enormous growth in greenfield development elsewhere, such as West Africa, with the result that much less attention is now being paid to the IRM side in places like the North Sea. That's the void we aim to fill.
"Secondly, what is also lacking is an organisation that can engineer the solutions and then go on and deliver those solutions in the field. Most of the diving companies either provide vessels and diving ??? so they get their income stream from utilisation of that asset. We generate our income from providing engineering services ??? doing all the job design, specifications, project management, the whole box and dice and then delivering it in-field, with the result that we can capture all of that value.
"Of course, a customer may not require an entire integrated operation, so we have just diving services, survey services and so forth."
When asked where Ross Deeptech fitted in, Lange said it would provide both a base and a set of ready-made engineering capabilities.
"It's about having a business that's very similar to ours and provides a footprint here for us to build from based on a very well respected, credible organisation.
"We're also securing a business that will allow us to transfer some of the know-how they have here at Ross Deeptech to our business in Australia."
Lange insisted that the family-style firm built up by Ross would be allowed to prosper with the minimum of meddling.
"It would be remiss of us to assume that we could completely reconfigure the business. For a start, we don't know enough about it because three months of due diligence doesn't tell us enough. So what we will do is use the management talent that Robert Ross has built over time; we will provide working capital to the business to grow; we will ask management how it views the world around here and how it wants to grow.
"We're from Australia. We understand the Australian environment, but I would be remiss if I stepped into Aberdeen and started throwing my weight around and telling people how to operate."
When will this mongrel start going north again?!?!? F%$@!!