Spirit Energy Orders POS-GRIP System from Plexus

Oil and gas company Spirit Energy has ordered a POS-GRIP surface production wellhead system from Plexus Holdings.

The order from Spirit Energy includes Plexus' POS-GRIP 5,000psi leak-proof "HG" metal to metal sealing surface production wellhead and associated spares and equipment for a new gas well in the UK North Sea. 

POS-GRIP is a friction grip technology that squeezes a pressure vessel from the outside to hold and seal components in place. In wellheads, this provides the capability to simply secure casing and tubing hangers in the well.

Under the terms of the contract with Spirit Energy, Plexus will receive milestone payments following the date of the signing of the purchase order through to completion. The wellhead is scheduled for delivery to Spirit Energy in February 2021. 

The contract is expected to have a duration of approximately 120 days, with most of the revenues to be booked during the Company's 2020/21 financial year, Plexus said.

This is the second purchase order for a surface production wellhead that Plexus has been awarded by Spirit Energy, a subsidiary of Centrica.

"Significantly it is Plexus' first major order since the COVID-19 pandemic struck and is a good indicator of the operations that Plexus has managed to maintain during this time," Plexus added.

"The purchase order is in line with the Company's IP-led strategy to extend the application of its POS-GRIP technology beyond jack-up exploration, where it has been used on over 400 wells worldwide, into higher value areas of the energy sector, including oil and gas production, geothermal and other applications," it added.

Plexus' CEO Ben Van Bilderbeek said: "This order is for a gas production well, and as the cleanest hydrocarbon to combust in terms of CO2 emissions, natural gas is increasingly viewed as a key transitional fuel, as the world moves towards net-zero emissions. A key assumption behind this view is that harmful fugitive methane emissions can and must be eradicated from the entirety of the natural gas consumption chain. 

"At the well-site, POS-GRIP's leak-proof wellheads can do that and as a result, we believe our production technology delivers a compelling economic and environmental proposition for the surface production operations we are targeting. With a substantial pipeline of opportunities, we are hopeful that today's order from Spirit Energy will prove to be a bellwether, as the oil and gas industry begins to emerge from the global COVID-19 pandemic-induced malaise."