January 21, 2020
Making headlines in Norwegian newspapers
Breaking a self-imposed silence, RSM Imagineering makes headlines in major Norwegian newspapers.
"A pump system that can reduce the cost of extraction of shale oil by five dollars a barrel, sets the stage for a new industrial adventure”, reads the lead in DN, the Norwegian business daily.
Featuring the story of the now 4-year-old startup, that has produced a game-changing pump system for fracking, DN focuses on the tech-savvy entrepreneurs and the highly successful investors that already have put millions of dollars into technology development, testing and market qualification.
“A pump from Vågsbygd is going to revolutionize the shale oil industry”, reads the headline in FVN, the major newspaper in Southern Norway.
Referring to the district of Vågsbygd, in the city of Kristiansand, FVN underlines that the pump system is developed in a global hotbed for hydraulics, mechatronics and offshore drilling. Kristiansand is the location for the Norwegian headquarters of global giants, such as National Oilwell Varco and Cameron Sense – a Schlumberger company.
Both newspapers mention the main investors, Barrus Capital, an investment company based on the success of an engineer and an economist from the oil and gas industry in Kristiansand, and Universal Pressure Pumping, a subsidiary of Patterson-UTI Energy, a major player in fracking in North America.
A prototype of the complete fracturing pump unit, installed on a trailer, is currently at a test facility near Dallas, Texas. It is scheduled to be on site for full-scale testing in the near future.
The Shield Pump System has been specifically designed and developed for pumping water and sand at high pressures encountered in the hydraulic fracturing industry. The well-known fatigue issues and weak points in conventional pumps have been eliminated without introducing new ones.
“We plan to set up a pump system factory in Kristiansand. This is a region with a highly skilled workforce within the disciplines we require. The market is, of course, global – and huge. In North America alone there is an estimated 13,000 operational fracking pump systems. They will all benefit greatly from our technology,” says RSM Imagineering founders Carl Robstad, Torbjørn Mollatt and Fredrik Hasle Skøie.
Two major Norwegian newspapers tell the story of RSM Imagineering.