Continental Focus, International Reach

Financial Boost for Oil Spill Player

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Release

14 April 2014 – Aptomar, a provider of advanced marine surveillance and oil spill detection systems for the oil and gas industry, has secured significant funding to drive growth particularly in Brazil, but also outside and within its technology’s other mature markets of Norway and the Gulf of Mexico.

Leading Nordic private equity group Verdane Capital Funds (Verdane) becomes a new shareholder of Aptomar. At the same time, Verdane and Aptomar’s current owners – Statoil Technology Invest, Investinor and ProVenture – injects multi-million funding into Aptomar.

“We already offer the world’s most advanced oil spill management system to operators and coastal authorities. However, this fresh injection of cash will allow us to roll out our next generation technology on a global scale, providing our clients with best in class field monitoring and emergency control capabilities,” says Lars André Solberg, co-founder and CEO of Aptomar.

Aptomar was founded in 2005. Its headquarters is located in Trondheim, Norway. The company has further offices and service operations in Houston, USA, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, along with sales representatives in 10 countries worldwide.

Aptomar provides two principal products for marine surveillance and tactical oil spill management. Its SECurus system is a safety solution for navigation aid, vessel safety and security and environmental monitoring. It combines stabilized long-range infrared (IR) and digital video cameras with a unique electronic chart system. The SECurus system is utilized to both detect and combat oil spills, and is mandatory on oil spill response vessels for use on the Norwegian and Brazilian continental shelf. The SECurus is the first sensor on the market that can measure and position the relative thickness of an oil spill, which combined with an oil spill detection radar, makes out the best available technology (BAT) to detect and combat more oil, faster, at a lower cost.

The second technology is the TCMS (tactical collaboration and management system), which provides operators and coastal authorities with real-time overview of its operations. TCMS integrates information from many different sources, including SECurus, radars, aerostats, ROVs, FLIR cameras and satellite imagery, into an easy-to-operate map-based interface.

The TCMS creates a common operating picture through gathering and sharing data between offshore vessels, platforms and airborne and onshore resources. Its purpose is earliest possible detection of a potential oil spill, plus efficient combating at a much lower cost. The TCMS can be installed in any emergency response operation room, at the same time, its information will be available through any internet browser on a computer, tablet or smartphone.

Today, Norway, Brazil and Azerbaijan have the most stringent regulations for oil spill detection and management. However, other countries are increasingly following their example.

“Macondo and oil companies’ Arctic ambitions has put this topic higher up on national authorities’ list of priorities. USA, Canada, Russia, UK, UAE and several Asian countries are in the process of tightening up their regulations. Aptomar is now in a place where we can more effectively provide our technologies and services to oil companies in all these regions,” says Lars André Solberg.

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