Viking acquires stake in 4Subsea

Viking Venture has acquired a 40% stake in 4Subsea AS, headquartered in Asker, Norway. 4Subsea specialises in providing monitoring solutions, software and expert services for flexible tubing and workover and wellhead systems. The company had a turnover of NOK 106 million in 2013 and are leaders in their niches on the Norwegian continental shelf. This is the second investment in Viking Ventures new investment concept.

Viking Venture's investment is aimed at assisting the company's development of integrated solutions and international expansion. The markets 4Subsea serves as an independent specialist company, within the flexible tube and intervention systems, is growing strongly and its services are increasingly in demand. 

4Subsea was started in 2007 with Statoil, Shell and BP as important customers. The company has always focused on technology and knowledge sharing internally, with customers and even competitors. "By sharing our experiences and our solutions openly with customers, we experience that facilitates mutual trust. This allows 4Subsea to work closely with customers, thus coming up with good solutions at really complex issues", says Chief Executive Officer Henning Christensen, who is also one of the founders of the company. "A good relationship with the customer is crucial when we deliver integrated services that solve the challenges they have."

Today, the list of customers also includes ExxonMobil, Maersk, Wintershall and several leading subsea and FPSO companies. "We have invited Viking Venture to become an investor in our company because we feel that they have experience, networks, and skills around strategy development and international expansion which is very useful for us," said Christensen. "In particular, we find that Viking Ventures presence in Houston helps to open many exciting doors for 4Subsea."

The company is located in Asker and Bergen in Norway, and has 57 employees. Its core business includes monitoring, analysis and condition assessment of intervention systems and flexible pipes. For this, the company has developed several products and services that keep track of the stress that pipes and wells are exposed to, and the condition of the equipment. This allows the oil companies to increase the life of expensive equipment, increase uptime of production and reduce the risk of errors.

Adapted from press release by Hannah Priestley-Eaton

Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/drilling-and-production/07072014/viking_acquires_stake_in_4subsea/