LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Oil and gas engineering services business Plexus Holdings announced on Tuesday that its Russian licensee Gusar has successfully installed the first wellhead for Gazprom as part of the previously-announced contract to supply 'POS-GRIP' rental wellhead gas exploration equipment to the Russia-based energy giant.
The AIM-traded firm said the wellhead installation marked the beginning of Gusar's contracted work with Gazprom for the first year of an up-to-five year jack-up gas exploration drilling programme on the Kara Sea Shelf, at shallow water depths of up to 150 metres.

It said the successful deployment of Plexus' equipment represented an "important milestone" towards establishing Plexus' "safest and best-in-class" POS-GRIP equipment in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States - one of the top three hydrocarbon producers in the world with significant gas reserves.

"The deployment of this first wellhead avails Gazprom of the many technical advantages of POS-GRIP technology," said Plexus chief executive officer Ben Van Bilderbeek.

"We are pleased that such a major global operator, after considering the available alternatives, has made the choice in favour of POS-GRIP technology for working in the Arctic conditions."

Van Bilderbeek claimed it was for the same reasons that the likes of BP, Centrica, ConocoPhillips, eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and a number of other operators that had used the POS-GRIP technology favoured it, often in what he said were their most complex drilling programmes.

"We will now be working closely with our partner Gusar to secure additional contracts for our POS-GRIP wellheads as we look to build another income stream for Plexus to complement those generated by our growing family of POS-GRIP products serving other areas of the energy industry, such as surface production."

Gusar's general director Alexander Beryozkin said his company was pleased to start its relationship with Gazprom as a local supplier of POS-GRIP technology.

"We look forward to continue our efforts to deliver technology of the highest standard to the Russian market."

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