Johannesburg, 14 October 2015 – Clough, the Australian based oil & gas engineering and construction company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Murray & Roberts, has announced the acquisition of Enercore Projects Limited (“Enercore”), a privately owned engineering services company headquartered in Calgary, Canada. The purchase price is linked to earnings and will be paid between years three and five from the effective date and is capped at CAD$10 million. The transaction will establish Clough’s Canadian Engineering, Procurement and Construction (“EPC”) project delivery arm.
Enercore specialises in the provision of Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management (“EPCM”) services to the Canadian oil and gas sector. Established in 2006, the group employs 70 engineering and technical personnel, and operates in the Canadian conventional oil & gas and oil sands sectors.
Henry Laas, Group Chief Executive of Murray & Roberts, comments: “The acquisition builds on Clough’s North American presence, which commenced in the USA in 2014 with the establishment of a Clough engineering team in Houston, Texas; and the acquisition of liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) engineering and consulting specialist CH-IV in Baltimore, Maryland. This acquisition further supports Murray & Roberts' strategy to grow its engineering capability in the business platforms that are focused on the natural resources market sectors, which is being pursued through small bolt-on acquisitions."
Clough Enercore will form part of Clough’s global network of engineering centres which draw on state-of-the-art 3D design, Cloud-based technology and over 1000 in-house engineers, including engineering teams in Canada and the USA. This engineering network model has been structured to optimise utilisation and reduce the cost of high quality engineering services for oil and gas clients worldwide supported by a strong regional presence.
Clough’s CEO and Managing Director Kevin Gallagher said the acquisition aligned with the company’s international expansion strategy.
Despite subdued oil and gas market conditions globally, the North American oil and gas industry is forecast to continue to grow; buoyed by a significant pipeline of projects in the LNG sector. The USA and Canada have the highest planned LNG capital expenditures globally over the next five years, with more than US$300 billion of proposed projects, which is anticipated to increase liquefaction capacity significantly in the two countries.
Clough Enercore provides integrated engineering, procurement and construction solutions for Canadian greenfield and brownfield oil & gas projects. The group specialises in the LNG, heavy oil/oil sands, conventional upstream, midstream & waste processing and downstream oil & gas sectors. Clough Enercore follows a production-focused approach, working across the entire asset lifecycle, to reduce risk and optimise safety, cost and productivity performance throughout the life of a project.
Clough Enercore’s solutions are supported by a global network of engineering and operating centres, highly specialised, cost-optimised engineering methods and innovative technology, underpinned by Clough’s 96-year track record in serving large and logistically challenging projects.