Siemens agrees to acquire subsea power duo

March 11, 2011
Siemens has agreed to acquire subsea engineering companies Poseidon Group and Bennex Group from Norway’s Subsea Technology Group.

Offshore staff

ERLANGEN, Germany -- Siemens has agreed to acquire subsea engineering companies Poseidon Group and Bennex Group from Norway’s Subsea Technology Group.

Poseidon provides subsea marinization, engineering, and consulting, and employs 140 personnel and consultants in Stavanger, Norway, and Aberdeen, Scotland. Bennex, a specialist in subsea equipment mainly for power solutions, has around 160 personnel in Bergen and Kongsberg (Norway), Aberdeen and the US. The two companies’ combined revenue is around €75 million ($104 million).

Tom Blades, CEO of Siemens’ Oil & Gas Division, said: “Subsea processing is a fast growing and technologically challenging part of upstream oil and gas. In May 2010, we announced the development of a subsea electrical grid to power seabed processing and production systems including pumps and compressors. With the acquisition of Poseidon and Bennex, Siemens has taken a major step to strengthen its in-house capabilities in marinization, subsea engineering, and consulting and assert itself as the leading developer of subsea power grid solutions on the back of its traditional electrical engineering core-competence.”

Siemens points out that growing energy demand exacerbated by mature field depletion is forcing oil and gas companies to exploit offshore fields farther out to sea at ever greater water depths. Full-scale subsea processing can make these projects commercially viable.

One of the main purposes of deepwater seabed processing is to counter huge hydrostatic pressure, and at the same time improve reserves recovery. Siemens says its subsea power grid, which can be deployed in water depths of up to 3,000 m (9,842 ft), can play a major role in this regard, also opening the way for a more reliable and safer offshore production environment.

Bennex supplies subsea distribution (hydraulic and electrical) systems, fiber optic, electromagnetic and seismic applications. Poseidon is an engineering and consulting company that will focus on marinizing existing Siemens equipment and technology for subsea environments, in the form of subsea control systems, transformers, switchgears, electric motors automation, compressors, along with cameras and subsea electric valve actuators.

Siemens is currently marinizing the STC-ECO compressor, which completed a factory test program last August, for subsea processing. The company has supplied its Subsea Controller for Statoil´s Snorre project in the Norwegian North Sea and the transformers operating in Petrobras´ Carapeba oil field offshore Brazil.

03/11/2011