Australia-based oil and gas engineering and construction company and wholly-owned Murray & Roberts (M&R) subsidiary Clough has acquired Canadian engineering services company Enercore Projects, establishing Clough’s Canadian engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) project delivery arm.

The purchase price of up to C$10-million was linked to earnings and would be paid between three and five years from the effective date of the transaction.

Established in 2006, Enercore operated in the Canadian conventional oil and gas and oil sands sectors and specialised in the provision of engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services to the Canadian oil and gas sector.
 
M&R CEO Henry Laas said the acquisition built on Clough’s North American presence, which started in the US, in 2014, with the establishment of a Clough engineering team in Houston, Texas, and the acquisition of liquefied natural gas (LNG) engineering and consulting specialist CH-IV in Baltimore, Maryland.

“This acquisition further supports M&R’s strategy to grow its engineering capability in business platforms focused on the natural resources market sectors, which is being pursued through small bolt-on acquisitions,” he commented.
 
Clough Enercore would form part of Clough’s global network of engineering centres, which drew on three-dimensional design, cloud-based technology and over 1 000 in-house engineers, including engineering teams in Canada and the US.

This engineering network model had been structured to optimise utilisation and reduce the cost of high-quality engineering services for oil and gas clients worldwide supported by a strong regional presence.
 
Clough CEO and MD Kevin Gallagher said the acquisition aligned with the company’s international expansion strategy.
 
“When Clough looks to acquire a business, we search for attributes that represent a strong strategic and cultural fit. Enercore is a company that follows a production-focused approach to maximise the value of clients’ assets across the entire asset lifecycle, which fits well with Clough’s strategy to provide a significantly strengthened project service offering to Canadian oil and gas clients,” he held.

Clough Enercore president Greg Roemer believed that, as part of the Clough group, Clough Enercore would have access to larger scopes of work in the Canadian oil and gas market, while supporting Clough’s engineering projects globally. 

“We will draw on Clough’s strong engineering, construction and project management capabilities to offer a comprehensive suite of EPC services, while maintaining our commitment to providing fit-for-purpose, high-quality EPCM and engineering services to our existing client base,” he noted.
 
Despite subdued oil and gas market conditions globally, the North American oil and gas industry was forecast to continue to grow, buoyed by a pipeline of projects in the LNG sector.

The US and Canada had the highest planned LNG capital expenditures globally over the next five years, with more than $300-billion of proposed projects, which is expected to increase liquefaction capacity significantly in the two countries.