[ 28.April 2006 ]

Ziebel receives first round of external investment

PRESS RELEASE
Ziebel AS - A new European based wellbore technology company established with strong financial backing

The Norwegian based wellbore technology company Ziebel AS (www.ziebel.biz), formerly known as HPSP AS, announced today that they have received an initial investment tranche of 23 million US dollars from an investment consortium led by Energy Ventures in Stavanger.

Ziebel has a target of rapidly growing into a substantial international oil service company focusing on technology for well completions, downhole artificial lift, wellbore monitoring and well intervention. The vision for the company is to deliver products and solutions that are reservoir optimized, creating value for their clients being the oil- and gas companies. The company’s plan is that it shall rapidly mature to be recognized as the most efficient and innovative well technology company in the world.

Ziebel was established on the 1. January 2006 by very experienced well production technology experts. Since the establishment, Ziebel has worked on growing its business based on mergers, acquisitions and organic growth.

There is a strong need worldwide for innovative new solutions to increase total recovery from the oil- and gas fields. Ziebel’s management has experience from international sales and marketing, operations and company mergers.

Ziebel also announced that its first company purchase at an undisclosed sum was completed today, being the Aberdeen based company iCalTech Ltd. (www.icaltech.biz). Ziebel will also inject substantial capital into iCalTech to develop technologies and organization in the UK. iCalTech Ltd. has the rights to develop and commercialize a disruptive well logging intervention method based on fiber optic DTS (distributed temperature sensing). Also, iCalTech will develop a new pumpdown based method to replace downhole sensor systems that will improve reliability and flexibility of downhole permanent sensing.

One of the founders of Ziebel also transferred all IP rights to Ziebel, where the company will develop a truly game changing well intervention method. This method will change substantially how subsea wells are being intervened, saving the operating companies significant costs.

“We are very pleased to support and work together with David Ottesen and his world class team, and have every confidence in them being able to develop Ziebel into a successful international technology company”, said Ole Melberg, Managing Partner in Energy Ventures.

President of Ziebel, David Ottesen said: “We are very excited about today’s announcement and is convinced that our business model will be attractive to potential participating companies that has or are in the process of developing game changing technology in the area of the well as well as to the constituencies in the industry as we provide a radical new approach in organizing a service company with the flexibility and adaptability required to adequately address the challenges that maximizing drainage efficiency represents and finally to our clients who in the time to come much more aggressively must pursue innovative and disruptive solutions in an effort to maximize return on their investment. A global company in this area is a first, the resource base; people as well as high degree of competence and innovation is a excellent foundation for this new venture”

Ziebel will start of with a base organization in Stavanger, Norway, that will be grown organically. In addition, the companies that are currently in merger discussions with Ziebel will bring in additional personnel and resources to gradually build a truly international footprint. The plan is to expand the activities, scope of services and number of engineers significantly ahead.

Further inquiries:

Ziebel

David Ottesen
+47 9549 5040
david.ottesen@ziebel.biz

Energy Ventures

Ole Melberg
+ 47 95 22 60 30

Ole Melberg
+ 47 95 22 60 30

Energy Ventures is a venture capital group based in Stavanger, Norway focusing on growth technology companies in the energy sector. More information can be found on www.energyventures.no

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