25 July 2008

Petrofac, the international oil & gas facilities service provider, confirms that it has acquired Eclipse Petroleum Technology Limited ("Eclipse"), the specialist production engineering company, for a total consideration of £7 million, comprised of £6 million in cash and £1 million to be satisfied through the issue of Ordinary Shares which will vest in two years' time.  Further consideration in cash and shares, up to an aggregate total of £16 million, will be determined by the level of future profitability.

Eclipse now forms part of Petrofac Facilities Management and creates production engineering capability in the business.  The acquisition comes some 18 months after Petrofac acquired a 51% interest in well operations management consultancy SPD, and the services provided by these two specialists will now enable Petrofac to take greater responsibility for production operations activities.

Gordon East, managing director of Petrofac Facilities Management commented: "The acquisition of Eclipse represents an important development for Petrofac as we add new and complementary services to our portfolio and set out to maximise the strong synergies that exist within the two organisations.  Eclipse brings a wealth of knowledge, capability and know-how to Petrofac in the area of production engineering, together with an extensive customer portfolio.  Its teams are currently fully utilised on external business but we do have plans to very quickly engage them on some of our key projects."

Stuart Girling, managing director of Eclipse commented: "As a specialist production engineering business Eclipse has successfully worked on projects with Petrofac in the past, and this deal brings together a strong set of complementary skills for our customers.  Being part of the Petrofac organisation presents tremendous development opportunities for both the business and our people. We are looking forward to achieving our growth aspirations for Eclipse as part of the group and have no doubt we will benefit from Petrofac's operational and financial strength."

Notes

Petrofac

Petrofac is a leading international provider of facilities solutions to the oil & gas production and processing industry, with a diverse customer portfolio including many of the world's leading integrated, independent and national oil & gas companies. Petrofac is quoted on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: PFC) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. 

Through its three divisions, Engineering & Construction, Operations Services and Energy Developments, Petrofac designs and builds oil & gas facilities; operates, maintains or manages facilities and trains personnel; and, where return criteria are met and service revenue synergies identified, co-invests with customers and partners. Petrofac's range of services allows it to help meet its customers' needs across the life cycle of oil & gas assets.

With more than 10,000 employees, Petrofac operates out of four strategically located international centres, in Aberdeen, Sharjah, Woking and Mumbai and a further 20 offices worldwide. The predominant focus of Petrofac's business is on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS), Africa, the Middle East, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Asia Pacific region.

For additional information, please refer to the Petrofac website at http://www.petrofac.com/.

Eclipse

Eclipse helps oil & gas industry customers realise high value opportunities by providing advice in petroleum technology and production engineering. Customers can increase production while safely managing well integrity in their brown field assets, and maximise investment return and minimise risks on green field developments by having improved insight into well and field design options.

Eclipse's specialist well and production engineering services span the oil & gas field life cycle. In Development Eclipse helps customers identify and mature the highest value well and field designs; in Production Modelling and Optimisation it advises oil & gas operating companies on the engineering needed to optimise well performance; in Well Life Cycle Risk Management it helps customers assure integrity and operate wells as safely as possible; and in Petroleum Engineering Functional Consulting it helps oil & gas companies understand and develop the organisations and systems needed to perform at high efficiency and with a readily accessible knowledge base.

Eclipse was formed in 1999 and has approximately 50 staff, mostly with oil company training and experience, working on projects for national, major and independent oil & gas companies from offices in London, Aberdeen, Houston, Dubai and Stavanger.

For additional information please refer to the Eclipse website at http://www.eclipsepetrotech.com/.