SeaEnergy - The Offshore Wind Development Company
The only listed pure play offshore wind energy company in the UK


SeaEnergy PLC (formerly Ramco Energy plc), a Scottish public limited company, and its subsidiaries and associates form an energy group, headquartered in Aberdeen, Scotland.

In September 2009 the Board announced the intention to focus the Group entirely on renewable energy, specifically offshore wind. This decision was ratified by shareholders at a General Meeting to change the name of the Company to SeaEnergy PLC. The Group's legacy oil & gas assets will be disposed of over time in an orderly manner designed to maximise value for SeaEnergy PLC shareholders.

The renewable energy operating subsidiary SeaEnergy Renewables Limited has secured two offshore wind farm sites in the Scottish Round and is bidding for further sites in the UK Round 3. The Scottish sites are Beatrice (circa 920MWs), in joint venture with SSE subsidiary Airtricity and Inch Cape (circa 905MWs), in joint venture with RWE subsidiary npower. In each case, SeaEnergy has a 25% interest.

UK round three bids have been made in joint venture with EDP Renewables of Portugal.

The Greater Gabbard development recently achieved transaction valuation multiples when interests in that project were sold at the consented stage and immediately prior to construction , both during 2008. Those transactions achieved prices of approximately 157,000 and 567,000 per MW, respectively and provide a recent precedent which Ramco shareholders should be aware of. If these values are applied to the 456 MW's which SeaEnergy has secured in the Scottish Round, this would imply values of approximately 72 million and 259 million, respectively for the business, should those projects develop to the consenting and construction phases.

Legacy Oil & Gas Interests

The Companys portfolio of oil and gas interests are either minority stakes or non-operated assets and it is the Boards intention to dispose of these interests in an orderly manner over time. The Board does not expect that any further significant funds will be committed to the oil and gas assets unless required, in the opinion of the Directors, to preserve their value, and therefore shareholder value, ahead of any realisation.


Mesopotamia Petroleum Company (MPC)

The Company holds a 32.67 per cent stake in an associated company, MPC, of which Stephen Remp is currently Chairman. In February 2009 MPC signed a JV agreement with IDC, the Iraqi state-owned drilling company, to create IOSCO. We announced on 8 July that IDC had ended the IOSCO JV as MPC had failed to meet a funding deadline. The MPC Board remains as committed as ever to building a presence in Iraq and since that date has been pursuing the re-instatement of the JV. The Board of MPC believe that the market opportunity for delivering shareholder value in Iraq, through the establishment of an oil service JV that is focused on drilling high productivity wells and increasing Iraqs oil production, remains highly attractive.

IDCs decision to end the JV obviously had a negative impact on MPCs fundraising process but considerable efforts are continuing to be made by MPC, which is advised by JP Morgan Cazenove, to secure the funding, conditional on the re-instatement of the JV. Discussions with potential investors and IDC are on-going.

In addition, a number of new and promising opportunities have been brought to MPC and are currently being evaluated. Reaching a satisfactory conclusion may take longer than we might hope but the Board believes it will be time well spent. Further updates will be issued as and when developments materialise.

Lansdowne Oil & Gas plc

The Company currently holds a 36.26 per cent interest in Lansdowne which is itself AIM listed. In 2007 The Company granted an option over its interest in Lansdowne to LC Capital Master Fund (LC), and any disposal of our current holding will have to be arranged in conjunction with LC and as a result no decision has been made by the Board that this interest is for sale, at present.

SOCAR arbitration

The Company is pursuing a claim against SOCAR relating to rights connected to the shallow water Gunashli Field in Azerbaijan. An arbitration hearing has been scheduled for October 2009 in Stockholm and the outcome is expected to be known before the year end.

Eagle HC Limited

Eagle is owned 100 per cent by The Company and has royalty interests in nine North Sea blocks. Whilst none of the blocks are currently producing, two have had hydrocarbon discoveries drilled on them.

Other Oil & Gas interests

The Company holds a small royalty interest onshore Bulgaria, over acreage shortly due to commence production, and an interest in acreage offshore Montenegro, which is currently the subject of a dispute with the Montenegrin authorities. It is expected that as the Bulgarian acreage moves into production and the royalty starts to generate cash flow that there will be buyers for the royalty. It is unlikely that we will find a buyer for our interests in Montenegro unless and until the dispute is successfully resolved.

Current market cap of 30million.
SOCAR compensation rumoured to be in the region of 50million.
MPC contract rumoured to be announced shortly.
Round 3 offshore windfarm contracts to be announced soon.

No advice intended but I do hold. DYOR

Bit of an unknown (we are hoping for a large cash win, but not definite until we get an RNS).. but below is a summary of what we do know regarding the SOCAR case:

From Annual report:

1. Agreement in place
"In 1994 Pennzoil and Ramco however negotiated a means of recovering costs expended on the gas compression project, including the right to participate in any major project on the shallow water section of Guneshli ('SWG') in priority to any other foreign company."

2. Penzoil drop out but ROS maintain right
"Pennzoil later negotiated a separate agreement with the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic ('SOCAR') under which Pennzoil relinquished its rights under the earlier agreement while preserving Ramco's right."

3. ROS partner with CONOCO then Total to develop
Between 1997 and 1999 Ramco pursued a collaboration with Conoco which was negotiating with SOCAR to undertake a development of SWG. Ramco's rights under the 1994 agreement were recognised in this collaboration.

News article at time:

"04-06-99 Natik Aliyev, president of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), said that negotiations on a $ 1.2 billion project to develop the shallow-water portions of the Guneshli offshore field were continuing.
However, he said, no deal has yet been signed. Azerbaijani officials had said earlier that a contract might be signed with Conoco of the United States and Ramco of Great Britain during the first week of June, before the end of the International Caspian Oil and Gas Exhibition."
...
"
Shallow-water Guneshli, currently Azerbaijan's main source of oil, has been under development since 1980 and has yielded 60 million metric tons of oil so far. It may contain 80-115 million metric tons more of recoverable oil. It is currently yielding about 180,000 barrels of oil per day, with 110,000 bpd of the total coming from older sections of the field. Output has been falling since 1992 due to decreasing well pressure.
SOCAR has offered to let Conoco lead the effort to develop the newer sections of the field but wants to remain as operator of the older sections. Azerbaijani media reported last year that Conoco had drawn up a preliminary production-sharing contract for the field allocating itself a 41.2% share in the field. The remaining equity would be split 8.8% to Ramco and 50% to SOCAR.
In 1999 when Conoco withdrew from negotiations, a similar collaboration followed with Total which expired in 2001.

4. ROS exerts re-iterates its right to field and announces has to go to arb
Since 2001 Ramco has continued to assert its interest in the development of SWG and has annually reminded SOCAR of its rights under the 1994 agreement. This area is once again on Ramco's agenda following the announcement by SOCAR in 2007 of initiatives to develop SWG involving foreign companies, which is one of the trigger conditions for our rights under the 1994 agreement. The other is a minimum capital amount which SOCAR's plan meets. The Company wrote to SOCAR formally asserting Ramco's rights and, in the absence of an appropriate response, warned SOCAR that we would have no alternative but to resort to arbitration under the 1994 agreement.

SOCAR has failed to provide any substantive response and on 13 June 2008 Ramco filed with the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce a request for arbitration under the UNCITRAL arbitration rules. All costs in connection with the SWG project and legal fees incurred to 31 December 2007 have been expensed at that date.

5. From S.B recently - clearing stating that SOCAR accepted ROS right to field and that arb is over SWG rather than GUP.
" The arbitration case relates to our right of first refusal over SWG, which are not disupted by SOCAR.We were not given the chance to use our rights before a major project was awarded. The numbers associated with the underlying GUP project which led to us being granted the right of first refusal have little relevance to the case. "

3 Key parts to the business:

1. Wind - Experts in off-shore wind.

A summary of their wind business can be found below:

Company presentation: http://www.seaenergy-plc.com/presentations.html

Note: the company has partnered with some of the largest wind turbine manufacturers in the world. SEA has @ 600MW of wind capacity on its books (a nuclear power plant is 1GW).

The company has bid with EDPR for 2 wind sites in the enormous Round 3 licensing round. Further success in R3 would add significant value to the companys underlying assets.

From iii article today:

"Aside from the UK, there are other interests. A heads of agreement has been signed in Taiwan and Sea Energy is spending a lot of time looking at China, which has a fully committed government."

The below broker reports provide a good over of the company as a whole and also their wind business:

http://cyberpost-seaenergy.angelfire.com/BrokerNotes/Ambrian/2009.10.27_AMBRIAN_27th_Oct_2009.doc
(Ambrian Brokers)

http://cyberpost-seaenergy.angelfire.com/BrokerNotes/Edison/2009.10.27_EDISON_27th_Oct_2009.pdf
(Edison Brokers)


2. Legacy O&G Assets

MPC: Seaenergy have a 32% interest in a company called MPC who are trying to win drilling contracts in Iraq.

Note: Rumours that several people have heard are that the company is very close to securing work as an independent operator. Discussions are still ongoing and we will be notified shortly.

Below is taken from the website:

The Company holds a 32.67 per cent stake in an associated company, MPC, of which Stephen Remp is currently Chairman. In February 2009 MPC signed a JV agreement with IDC, the Iraqi state-owned drilling company, to create IOSCO. We announced on 8 July that IDC had ended the IOSCO JV as MPC had failed to meet a funding deadline. The MPC Board remains as committed as ever to building a presence in Iraq and since that date has been pursuing the re-instatement of the JV. The Board of MPC believe that the market opportunity for delivering shareholder value in Iraq, through the establishment of an oil service JV that is focused on drilling high productivity wells and increasing Iraqs oil production, remains highly attractive.

IDCs decision to end the JV obviously had a negative impact on MPCs fundraising process but considerable efforts are continuing to be made by MPC, which is advised by JP Morgan Cazenove, to secure the funding, conditional on the re-instatement of the JV. Discussions with potential investors and IDC are on-going.

In addition, a number of new and promising opportunities have been brought to MPC and are currently being evaluated. Reaching a satisfactory conclusion may take longer than we might hope but the Board believes it will be time well spent. Further updates will be issued as and when developments materialise.


3. SOCAR

The company has spent significant money in terms of legal/arbitration fees against the state oil company of Azerbaijan. Outcome from this is due before the end of the year and could arrive anyday. Significant multiples of the Share price could be realised.

Below is taken from the recent III article:

A second potential stocking filler for shareholders comes in the form of a hangover from the early 1990s operations of Ramco in the Caspian Sea.

Remp has taken the government of Azerbaijan to a Stockholm-based tribunal, so-called SOCAR arbitration, over claims that the Azeri government failed to deliver on certain criteria to allow him to take up his rights. It is also due to announce its findings imminently.

"If we win, and we deserve to, then it will be a massive Christmas present, it will be oil and gas money going straight in to this business and prolongs the period at which we have to go to the market for funding," he said.

He declines to put a figure on how much that might be, but there are very few small numbers in the oil business.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Make your own mind up but you get all this for 20mln.

If you try and put a value on our existing assets then this is a good benchmark (taken from seaenergy report):

"The Greater Gabbard development recently achieved transaction valuation multiples when interests in that project were sold at the consented stage and immediately prior to construction , both during 2008. Those transactions achieved prices of approximately 157,000 and 567,000 per MW, respectively and provide a recent precedent which Ramco shareholders should be aware of. If these values are applied to the 456 MW's which SeaEnergy has secured in the Scottish Round, this would imply values of approximately 72 million and 259 million, respectively for the business, should those projects develop to the consenting and construction phases.

todays scotsman hursday, 3rd December 2009 Change Date

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RSS Feed What's this?
One to Watch: Blowing up a storm
Premium Article !


Published Date: 03 December 2009
By Bryan Johnston of Brewin Dolphin

SeaEnergy

37.25p -1.75p

Scotsman says BUY
WHATEVER the outcome of the Copenhagen talks, renewable energy remains a hot topic. Investors with leanings towards such projects, tempered with an acknowledgement of risk, might have a look at SeaEnergy.

SeaEnergy was previously known as Ram
ADVERTISEMENT
co Energy, an oil and gas explorer that had only limited success in either arena. It has reinvented itself as a service provider to the offshore wind industry. UK-based, SeaEnergy has a 25 per cent stake in two of the largest-scale offshore wind projects in Scotland, the majority partners being Scottish & Southern Energy and RWE NPower Renewables. Lately, they have been focusing on the Beatrice demonstrator wind farm, a project that is involved in installing the largest turbines, which are deployed offshore to depths of well over 120ft. The joint venture, in which SeaEnergy is a partner with SSE, has the contract to expand the field into a 920 megawatt wind farm. Elsewhere, its partnership with NPower Renewables involves a 905MW contract, again in the North Sea.

There are funding issues. It is estimated that SeaEnergy will require over 30 million between the middle of next year and 2013 and it is not immediately clear how these funds will be generated. Still, SeaEnergy is participating in the Round 3 awards and is looking to develop wind farms within two different zones off Scotland.

There is still a tail from SeaEnergy's previous life as Ramco, particularly over the termination of a drilling programme in Iraq, which may require further funding.

However, if SeaEnergy can successfully gear its existing and, hopefully, future licence wins, then funding may not be an issue. The shares certainly look interesting.

03/12/2009 12:11:09 38.00 6,506 O 2,472.28
03/12/2009 12:10:23 38.00 12,800 O 4,864.00
03/12/2009 10:28:04 37.50 10,580 O 3,967.50
03/12/2009 10:19:52 37.40 10,000 O 3,740.00
03/12/2009 10:06:48 37.40 2,000 O 748.00

iraqi rumours from socar are an award is imminent and new production /sharing agreement GUP has little to no/impact on this arbitration.

Although we got screwed over in GUP it has little to no bearing on the SWG case.

I agree that SWG was used to compenstate us over GUP, but if we had a legal case for GUP then it would have been made years ago.

What we do have is documents over a period of time from SOCAR affirming our right to first refusal on SWG. That right was ignored and thats why I feel we have a strong case.

Coming to a number is extremely difficult - too many unknowns...all we know is that in 1999:

"Azerbaijani media reported last year that Conoco had drawn up a preliminary production-sharing contract for the field allocating itself a 41.2% share in the field. The remaining equity would be split 8.8% to Ramco and 50% to SOCAR."

Difficult to put a figure on that given development costs etc, but the company has spent a lot of money in legal & arbitration fees - so am hopeful they feel we have a strong case..

Iraq Drilling Co (IDC) is forging ahead with building its own drilling capacity while waiting for the oil ministry to pick one of its many suitors to establish a new joint venture after the first attempt with Mesopotamia Petroleum faltered last month. Two years ago no company would come and work in Iraq so we had to go with Mesopotamia even though it had no track record. Today, many reputable and recognized companies are knocking on our door and we think we will be better off with one of them, Senior Deputy Oil Minister for upstream Abdul Karim al-Luaybi tells me.

If anything, the first bid round in June seems to have unleashed the Iraqi potential. It revealed just how much

http://www.mesopotamiapetroleum.com/

rumours rife of news coming

SeaEnergy PLC

* Legacy O&G Interests
* Lansdowne Oil & Gas
* Mesopotamia Petroleum
* Home

SeaEnergyLegacy Oil & Gas Interests

The Companys portfolio of oil and gas interests are either minority stakes or non-operated assets and it is the Boards intention to dispose of these interests in an orderly manner over time. The Board does not expect that any further significant funds will be committed to the oil and gas assets unless required, in the opinion of the Directors, to preserve their value, and therefore shareholder value, ahead of any realisation.

Mesopotamia Petroleum Company
(a) Mesopotamia Petroleum Company (MPC)

The Company holds a 32.67 per cent stake in an associated company, MPC, of which Stephen Remp is currently Chairman. In February 2009 MPC signed a JV agreement with IDC, the Iraqi state-owned drilling company, to create IOSCO. We announced on 8 July that IDC had ended the IOSCO JV as MPC had failed to meet a funding deadline. The MPC Board remains as committed as ever to building a presence in Iraq and since that date has been pursuing the re-instatement of the JV. The Board of MPC believe that the market opportunity for delivering shareholder value in Iraq, through the establishment of an oil service JV that is focused on drilling high productivity wells and increasing Iraqs oil production, remains highly attractive.

IDCs decision to end the JV obviously had a negative impact on MPCs fundraising process but considerable efforts are continuing to be made by MPC, which is advised by JP Morgan Cazenove, to secure the funding, conditional on the re-instatement of the JV. Discussions with potential investors and IDC are on-going.

In addition, a number of new and promising opportunities have been brought to MPC and are currently being evaluated. Reaching a satisfactory conclusion may take longer than we might hope but the Board believes it will be time well spent. Further updates will be issued as and when developments materialise.

Lansdowne Oil & Gas
(b) Lansdowne Oil & Gas plc

The Company currently holds a 36.26 per cent interest in Lansdowne which is itself AIM listed. In 2007 The Company granted an option over its interest in Lansdowne to LC Capital Master Fund (LC), and any disposal of our current holding will have to be arranged in conjunction with LC and as a result no decision has been made by the Board that this interest is for sale, at present.
(c) SOCAR arbitration

The Company is pursuing a claim against SOCAR relating to rights connected to the shallow water Gunashli Field in Azerbaijan. An arbitration hearing has been scheduled for October 2009 in Stockholm and the outcome is expected to be known before the year end.
(d) Eagle HC Limited

Eagle is owned 100 per cent by The Company and has royalty interests in nine North Sea blocks. Whilst none of the blocks are currently producing, two have had hydrocarbon discoveries drilled on them.
(e) Other Oil & Gas interests

The Company holds a small royalty interest onshore Bulgaria, over acreage shortly due to commence production, and an interest in acreage offshore Montenegro, which is currently the subject of a dispute with the Montenegrin authorities. It is expected that as the Bulgarian acreage moves into production and the royalty starts to generate cash flow that there will be buyers for the royalty. It is unlikely that we will find a buyer for our interests in Montenegro unless and until the dispute is successfully resolved

e-mail from ceo today One of the posters on the other site talked to the CEO of MPC and he posted this :


KeepItUp - 3 Dec'09 - 10:54 - 8253 of 8260

Ed - seems i owe you an apology. I have it confirmed the type of contracts MPC are going for do not need parlimentary approval. Seems i was basing the process model on a JV. It is different for what MPC have nearly completed now. So this is how the process stands:

1) "Win" a tender (literally means you are the front runner and thats all)
2) "Winning" tender goes to ministry of oil of preliminary approval
3) Tender goes to house of representatives (not required)
4) Tender goes back to ministry of oil who calls operating company and MPC to thrash out a detailed contract
5) Apply for letter of credit to cover 70 - 80% of the job
6) Mobilisation

Time scales:
1) ~4 months
2) & 4) ~6 weeks
5) 2 months minimum
6) 6 weeks to 9 months

I can infer that MPC are approaching, or at, step 5 or 6. The very good news is they are so very close to an announcement, in fact they are hopeful by year end!

Im guessing they want to issue a statement when the letter of credit has been signed, so this is probably what we are waiting for and fits the end of year time line.

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Money/Story/STIStory_459857.html
Nov 27, 2009
Iraq company in venture talks

BASRA (Iraq) - THE state-run Iraq Drilling Company is talking to several international oil firms about possibly reviving a short-lived joint venture with a Ramco Energy Plc subsidiary, the head of the company said.

The US$400 million (S$555 million) venture with Ramco's Mesopotamia Petroleum Co Ltd to drill 60 new oil wells a year fell through in July after Mesopotamia missed a deadline to confirm funding.

Iraqi Drilling Company Director Idrees al-Yassiri told Reuters in an interview that even though the contract was terminated, the deal had benefitted Iraq because it broke the ice for foreign oil firms thinking about entering Iraq.

'Dozens of companies asked to work in Iraq after we signed this contract and this is a great step forward, even if the deal was not implemented,' Yassiri said.

'We are negotiating with major, established world companies to possibly form a permanent partnership through a joint company or partnerships on specific projects. Negotiations are still underway and we can't name the companies.'

Iraq and Mesopotamia Petroleum set up the joint venture in February, saying it would add 120,000 barrels of oil per day to Iraq's output capacity within a year. -- REUTERS

Steve Remp, Chairman, commented, "While IDC's decision to invoke the strict terms of the JV Agreement is frustrating, it is consistent with the approach we have seen in dealing with governmental bodies in Iraq. We believe we are making good progress in fulfilling the initial investment requirements and together with MPC's advisers (including J.P. Morgan Cazenove) remain in contact with the Iraqi Government regarding progress on funding for this historic JV. The delays to secure funding have been due, principally, to the delays experienced with IDC in agreeing and signing the JV Business Plan. This has now been completed. The respective IDC and MPC teams, who have come together to form the IOSCO Board and Management, are engaged on a daily basis as part of the ongoing JV implementation, including submission of the JV's first 60 well tender.

"MPC has not accepted the validity of this termination and continues to work to fulfill its funding requirements as soon as possible. I continue to believe IOSCO remains the most valuable and strategically important tool available to Iraq's Ministry of Oil to increase oil production and secure additional oil revenue as part of the Government's task of rebuilding the country.

"MPC is determined to play its part in this. Doing business in Iraq was never going to be easy and our success to date is founded on MPC's vision, persistence and dedication. I am bringing this matter to the attention of Iraq's Minister of Oil with a request that he intervene personally to resolve this unfortunate turn of events and allow us to continue with this important project."

http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article199818.ece

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:DmlnvwgO7JEJ:www.stockgumshoe.com/2009/07/iraqi-oil-the-most-dangerous-1400-youll-ever-see.html+mesopotamia+petroleum+company&cd=70&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

http://www.envirogen-recruit.com/cm/news/33438 Ambrian Capital says buy SeaEnergy PLC, puts 70 percent upside on the stock

Ambrian Capital has issued a note on SeaEnergy PLC (AIM: SEA), a week after the name change from Ramco Energy and the strategic shift from oil services company to pure-play offshore wind energy play came into effect. The broker has a buy' rating on the stock and places an 81 pence valuation on SeaEnergy, based on a sum-of-the-parts of the portfolio of assets it holds.

This represents an upside of near 70 percent compared to the current share price. Sea Energy was trading at 46.75p in early afternoon deals today.

When Ramco announced the re-positioning at the beginning of September, it said the offshore wind opportunity was "truly enormous", with over 130 billion of investment envisaged over the next 11 years through the Scottish and UK Offshore Rounds.

Ramco subsidiary SeaEnergy Renewables Ltd (SERL) has secured a net 456 MegaWatts of offshore wind farm acreage alongside large utility partners. By early September, SERL had secured a 25 percent interest in two joint ventures to develop offshore wind farms with a total capacity of over 1800MW with partners Scottish & Southern Energy PLC (LSE: SSE) unit Airtricity and RWE AG unit npower. Together with EDP Renewables (EDPR) it had also made applications for sites to be awarded through the UK Offshore Round 3 process.

The new entity will draw its strength from the SERL team which conceived, developed and delivered the world's first deep water wind farm which remains the deepest development to date - the Beatrice Project. It involved the installation of the two largest wind turbines, with 5 MW capacity each, ever deployed offshore, at water depths of 45 metres. This, combined with the Ramco team's expertise in delivering deep water offshore developments in the oil and gas industry, puts SeaEnergy in an unrivalled position at the vanguard of the emerging offshore renewables industry, it stated.

Ambrian Capital said in its note that, while bids in the UK Offshore Round 3 are not expected to be announced before the end of 2009, it believes the EDPR/SeaEnergy consortium is ideally placed to be allocated one or more of the nine zones in the programme.

After a 7.5 million placing with UK investment group Lanstead Capital LP which will become a 22 percent shareholder in the new entity, SeaEnergy's model is de-risked in the near term, with funds to meet corporate overheads and development investment until mid-2010, the broker said, adding that the development business model aims to achieve a 10 times return at the pre-construction stage.

"SeaEnergy is an example of a stock with an asymmetric risk profile - minimal capital at risk for a large potential payoff."

3v1 looks like seller has gone time for a move north
http://www.talentscotland.com/jobs.aspx?item_id=73765

Ramco Exits The Oil Industry To Focus On Offshore Wind Under The New Name Of SeaEnergy

By Rue Swabey

The move by Aim-listed, Aberdeen-based oil company, Ramco Energy to change its name to SeaEnergy, divest its oil assets and focus on offshore wind, underscores the potential magnitude of the UK offshore wind opportunity. Ramco started off in 1977 as a contractor servicing pipes, before becoming an exploration company. Its founder and chairman, Steve Remp, whose family have been in oil for four generations, made headlines in the 1990s when Ramco became the first western company to enter the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. But there have been lows too. In 2003 there was an unsuccessful move into gas production off Ireland, and recently plans to develop oil services in Iraq fell through when the companys partner, the state-owned Iraqi drilling company, pulled out of a joint venture to tender for drilling contacts.

Mr Remps oil expertise makes his move into renewable energy particularly compelling. His experience in managing complex engineering projects in difficult environments will be invaluable in developing offshore wind. SeaEnergys business development director, Allan MacAskill, who was previously at Talisman Energy, highlights how the infrastructure of a depleted oilfield can be re-used for offshore wind. In fact the cost involved in dismantling the four legged stools which oil platforms stand on when oil fields are de-commissioned makes it highly desirable to develop offshore wind farms on the site of a former oil field.

Ramco established SeaEnergy Renewables (SER) in 2008 and will now acquire the shares that it does not own. The SeaEnergy team participated in the design and construction of the 41 million Beatrice Wind Farm which was set up in 2006 as a demonstration project for the European DOWNVind programme. At the time it was Europes largest renewable energy research and development programme. It successfully deployed two 5MW turbines adjacent to the Beatrice oil field, 25 kilometres from the east cost of Scotland in waters 45 meters deep. SERs involvement in the project has given it valuable offshore wind experience.

SeaEnergy has agreed joint ventures with three European utilities: Airtricity (Scottish and Southern Energy), RWE npower Renewables, and EDP Renewables. With these partners it plans to develop between three and five GW of offshore wind capacity within five years, and to build it within ten years. SeaEnergy plans to retain a 25 to 33 per cent stake in each project, resulting in net capacity of at least 1GW. With its partners, SeaEnergy has secured rights to 455MW and is currently bidding for acreage in the UK Round 3 with Portugals EDF.

The UK is an attractive offshore wind market, given its long coast lines and strong winds. The regulatory framework is positive, while feasibility studies for the construction of an offshore transmission system linking potential offshore sites in the coastal waters of Ireland and Western Scotland are underway. Slow progress in developing onshore wind and low solar penetration mean that if the UK is to meet its target of generating 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, offshore wind must be prioritised. But it is far more challenging than onshore wind, both in terms of technology and costs. Deep waters make it difficult to attach turbine towers to the seabed and post-installation maintenance is expensive. The cost of a transmission grid is estimated to at 15 billion. Large oil firms like BP and Shell have pulled out of offshore wind projects.

SeaEnergy is seeking to raise 8 million to fund its share of the development costs of the Scottish sites. US investment fund Lanstead has made a 7.5 million equity commitment at 55p per share, which will give it a 22 per cent stake. If SeaEnergy secures the consents it hopes for, there is likely to be another fundraising or an IPO in 2010. An announcement on UK Round 3 awards from the Crown Estate is expected in the last quarter of this year and the completion of the Scottish environmental assessment is expected in the first half of 2010. Both events will give the market a clearer indication of where SeaEnergy is heading.

http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch.co.uk/research/category/SeaEnergy

oilandgasman/theresearcher/holmes/devlin/etc/etc

Serial pump and dump merchant.

Ramco becoming this.......a bad joke.....ridiculous...same people possibly from oil now wind....