Guide about AGR

AGR Group was founded in 1987 and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. It is a leading provider of essential services and technologies to the international petroleum industry, with a focus on three operating divisions - AGR Petroleum Services, AGR Drilling Services and AGR Field Operations.

With a worldwide reputation for innovative, safe and environmentally-friendly solutions to key exploration and production challenges, the AGR Group has established prime position in a number of key sectors. AGR Group has 1,800 employees worldwide.

AGR Group has grown through innovation and development as well as through the acquisition of complementary businesses. Recent acquisitions include Drilling Production Technology AS (DPT), Triangle Technology AS (Triangle), Reservoir Evaluation Services (RES), Peak Group (Holdings) Ltd (Peak), Technology Design Ltd (TD), and SeaVation Ltd.

In addition, in January 2007, AGR announced it had agreed to acquire Upstream Petroleum Pty Ltd, the Australian-based provider of development and production services to the upstream oil and gas industry for a maximum consideration of AU$85.0 million. It also announced it had acquired a 51% interest in Horton Technologies Inc. (Horton), a Houston-based technology development company and Safe Control NDT AB of Sweden.  On April 20 2007 AGR announced it had acquired F. J. Brown & Associates Inc, one of the leading drilling engineering and well management firms in the United States. The deal was valued at US$20 million (NOK 120 million).

The chief executive of AGR Group is Sverre Skogen with Arne Aune as Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Vice President for Group Functions

For more information see www.agr.com

Europe / Russia / Kazakhstan / Middle East
Americas
Asia Pacific
West Africa

Our services range from assisting small exploration companies with their first license applications, through to constructing and managing ambitious drilling programs and on to providing expertise for exploration, development, production and maintenance projects, including for some for the world’s largest oil companies.

We have over 40 patented technologies, all of which are in commercial use, in drilling, well construction, pipe inspection\integrity services and excavation.

Statoil
Norsk Hydro
BP
Total
Shell
GE
Pertra
Anzon
Nexus Energy
Inpex Browse
Aker Borgestad
Maersk

The group is focused on three operating divisions:

• AGR Petroleum Services, headed by Richard Erskine
• AGR Drilling Services, headed by Stig Andersen
• AGR Field Operations, headed by Åge Landro

In addition two regional business units (in addition to our European offices), AGR Americas and AGR Asia Pacific, support and promote the operating divisions product and service offerings.

AGR Petroleum Services employs strategic vision and traditional engineering skills to support international petroleum companies across the asset life cycle, from initial reservoir evaluation to field abandonment. We are leading the way in constructing multi-client, multi-well drilling programmes on behalf of smaller oil companies who might not have the resources, skills or access to the market to fulfil drilling commitments on their own.  Leveraging the strength of its relationships with rig owners and major oil companies, AGR brought innovative multi-well multi-client drilling rig campaigns to the independent E&P’s at a time when individually, independents could not secure drilling rigs for single well slots. 

For instance, the Byford Dolphin semi-submersible rig spudded the first well in its AGR Group managed seven month, multi-well, multi-client program in the Bay of Biscay in September, the first time drilling has occurred offshore France since 1998.

In another example, a three-year, 25-well drilling programme for a consortium of seven oil companies has commenced in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea using the Bredford Dolphin drilling rig. Similar programmes have been successfully executed on the UK Continental Shelf and in the Timor Sea, Australia.

AGR Petroleum Services’ well management specialists manage and plan the whole drilling process; from the preparation of permits, environmental statements and risk assessments to the contracting of rigs and the management of the drilling process.

In 2007 AGR Petroleum Services expects to drill 55 wells worldwide on behalf of clients utilising a veritable “who’s who” of drilling rigs:

AGR Petroleum Services also provide advanced software and consultancy services designed to optimise well construction and field exploitation as well as increase production. Our team of specialists – one of the strongest in Europe – covers all of the sub-surface disciplines: geophysics, geology, sedimentology, petrophysics, reservoir engineering, reservoir modeling and fluid substitution.

Executive Vice President Richard Erskine heads up AGR Petroleum Services.

AGR Drilling Services is our business area for supply of equipment and services for drilling, well operations and underwater trenching and excavation in the global offshore industry.

This division has developed Riserless Mud Recovery System (RMR) technology which is designed to re-circulate and reuse the drilling fluids that are needed when drilling top hole sections of a well. Important benefits include cost savings from reduced operating time – typically three to five working days – and reduced discharges to the environment. More than 35 wells using RMR  have been drilled in the Caspian Sea, offshore Sakhalin Island, Australia, the North Sea, and the Barents Sea. RMR technology is to be used for the first time in Egypt under a contract with the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company, BP’s joint venture with Egyptian General Petroleum Company, and in Indonesia for Shell Sarawak.

Other technologies developed by AGR Drilling Services have included the Junk Trapper mechanical well cleaning tool and the Dynamic Desander tool, used to separate sand and gravel from fluid flows in wells. The Junk Trapper, which effectively removes debris and any foreign bodies from wellbores, has so far been used successfully in over 1,300 wells worldwide.

Recently the division announced a new contract with Norsk Hydro to deploy AGR Group’s new seabed excavation technology, the Claycutter X, at Ormen Lange in 2008, the largest gas field under development on the Norwegian continental shelf.
 
Executive Vice President Stig Andersen heads up AGR Drilling Services

AGR Field Operations performs a variety of key tasks, providing operators with expertise in production technology as well as planned inspection, cleaning and maintenance of installations. Our pipeline inspection techniques in particular are among the most advanced in the industry, using state-of-the-art ultrasound technology combined with sophisticated data transmission and storage facilities. In this way we have prevented potentially harmful – and dangerous – leaks in North Sea pipelines on a number of occasions.

Our project services activities have earned a reputation for providing specialist expertise in supporting client needs for hiring qualified and experienced personnel together with an in-house engineering environment. Our project expertise is demonstrated by inquiries from the major oil companies on the Norwegian Continental Shelf comprising advanced studies and challenging EPCI contracts.

On May 25 2007 AGR announced it had signed a worldwide partnership agreement with GE’s pipeline inspection and integrity services. The five-year agreement has an estimated value of NOK 150 million. It covers the deployment of AGR PipeTech’s in-line inspection tools and services. The tools include the PipeScan and WeldScan systems that have set new pipeline inspection standards within the oil and gas industry.

In August 2007 Norsk Hydro awarded Field Operations an EPCI contract in connection with the dismantling of two deck cranes at Oseberg Field Center, an additional area of expertise offered by the division.

Executive Vice president Åge Landro heads up AGR Field Operations.

HEAD OFFICE:

AGR Group
Smålonane 12-14, P.O.Box 163, 5342 Straume – NORWAY
Telephone: +47 56 31 60 00 – Fax: +47 56 31 60 01

REGIONAL OFFICES:

AGR Petroleum Services
Reservoir Evaluation Services Kazakhstan Ltd.
7 Begalin Street KZ-050010 Almaty - KAZAKHSTAN
Telephone: +7 727 266 94 75 - Fax: +7 727 266 94 76

AGR Petroleum Services
Reservoir Service, SMNG Center, Office No. 11,
19/2 Malaya Gruzinskaya St, Moscow, 123557 - RUSSIA
Telephone: +7 495 2550 635- Fax: +7 495 2520 891

Main Office Asia Pacific:
AGR Asia Pacific Pty Ltd
Level 3, 342 Flinders Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 - AUSTRALIA
Telephone: +03 8625 8400- Fax: +03 9620 9938

Main Office Americas:
AGR Americas Inc.
11757 Katy Freeway, Suite 1300, Houston, Texas 77079 - USA
Telephone: +1 281 759 5808- Fax: +1 281 759 5060

AGR Subsea Ltd, Unit 'C', Kettocks Lodge, Campus 2,
Balgownie Drive, Bridge of Don, Aberdeen, AB22 8GU
Telephone: +44 1224 355670 - Fax: +44 1224 355671

Canada
1005 1st Avenue N.W, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 0A8
Telephone: 1 403 607 6004

Malaysia
Level 6, MCB Plaza Building, 6 Changkat Raja Chulan
50200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Telephone: +603 2174 9200- Fax: +603 2174 9201

Sweden
Härdgatan 2, 43231 Varberg
Telephone: 0340 848 77- Fax: 0340 62 75 61

United Arab Emirates
JAFZA 15/Suite 317 Jebel Ali Free Zone PO Box 18683
Telephone: +971 (4) 8812216- Fax: +971 (4) 881 2214

Web: www.agr.com