North-east energy-investment company Ramco Energy unveiled plans yesterday to sell its oil and gas interests and focus wholly on offshore wind power.
Ramco said its wholesale move into renewables, creating the first publicly quoted company focused entirely on offshore wind, stemmed from a reluctance by green-focused investment funds to invest in businesses with significant oil and gas interests.
Once it has established the value of its oil and gas interests, Ramco will seek to acquire the minority stake in its SeaEnergy Renewables unit and rename the whole group SeaEnergy.
Hailing the “dawn of a new era” for the business, executive chairman Steve Remp said the time was right for Westhill-based Ramco to exit from its traditional market and concentrate fully on the opportunities opening up for renewable energy globally.
Mr Remp said SeaEnergy Renewables had done exceptionally well since its launch just over a year ago, with the aim of playing a key role in the delivery of offshore wind-farm schemes. He added: “It is now a much bigger business than anything we have in our oil and gas portfolio.”
Ramco said it had secured £7.5million of funding from institutional investor Lanstead, which will become a 22% shareholder in the group.
Lanstead is committed to investing £5million at 55p per share, while an additional £2.55million is subject to shareholder approval at its AGM.
SeaEnergy Renewables has already amassed, along with utility partners, offshore windfarm acreage capable of producing 456 megawatts.
Ramco aims to have acreage for a gigawatt (GW) of offshore generation capacity within five years.
Mr Remp said: “The offshore wind opportunity is truly enormous, with over £130billion of investment envisaged over the next 11 years through the Scottish and UK offshore rounds.
“The North Sea is once again opening up for development, this time driven by the global demand for clean energy. SeaEnergy will be at the heart of this revolution.”
He likened the firm’s new commitment to green-energy as “similar to where we were in 1975” – just prior to Ramco being set up as a specialist in the cleaning and protection of oilfield tubulars and pipeline sections.
Mr Remp said the same business model used to develop ties in the Caspian region as Ramco grew its exploration and production activities was now being applied to offshore wind.
Energy Minister Jim Mather said Ramco’s announcement was further evidence of the enormous potential of offshore wind in Scottish waters, adding: “The current Crown Estate leasing rounds have the potential to unlock over 6GW of offshore wind in our territorial waters alone, while just last week an industry led report showed there could be over 12,000 jobs in Scottish marine renewables by 2020.
“In partnership with industry we will continue to deliver the right framework for a world leading renewables sector.”
Ramco, which last year refocused itself as an energy investment company, also announced results for the six months to June 30, posting pre-tax losses of £2.45million. This compares with a deficit of £1.18million for the first half of 2008.
Recommended for you
