INTERNATIONAL oil and gas facility service provider Petrofac has snapped up Eclipse Petroleum Technology, which has offices in Aberdeen, London, Stavanger, Houston and Dubai, in a deal potentially worth £16million.
Petrofac, which operates out of four strategically located international centres in Aberdeen, Woking, Sharjah and Mumbai in addition to a further 20 offices worldwide, is paying £6million up front.
The remainder of the potential acquisition value involves £1million in shares that will vest in two years and a further amount – made up of cash and shares – linked to future profits.
Eclipse, founded in 1999, employs about 50 people in services including field development, production modelling, output optimisation, well life-cycle risk management and petroleum engineering consultation work.
The business now forms part of Petrofac’s facility-management arm.
Eclipse managing director Stuart Girling said yesterday the deal brought together a strong set of complementary skills for customers.
He added: “Being part of the Petrofac organisation presents tremendous development opportunities for both the business and our people.
“We are looking forward to achieving our growth aspirations for Eclipse as part of the group and have no doubt we will benefit from Petrofac’s operational and financial strength.”
Gordon East, managing director at Petrofac Facilities Management, said Eclipse teams were fully utilised on external business, adding: “We have plans to very quickly engage them on some of our key projects.”
Faroese oil and gas company Atlantic Petroleum said yesterday it had agreed an additional bridge loan of about £10.6million, giving it total bridge loan facilities of about £28.6million.
The additional debt will be used to finance Atlantic’s exploration and appraisal programme for 2008 and further development drilling on the Chestnut and Ettrick fields, in which it has interests. Providers of the new finance arrangements are Eik Banki and Foroya Banki.