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Aberdeen Press & Journal – November 2005

Xodus Group makes major appointment to capitalise on growth market
Aberdeen-based Xodus Group is celebrating a major coup after attracting highly experienced subsea business leader, Richard Heard to lead its Subsea Division.

With over sixteen years subsea experience, Heard joins the new oil and gas consulting business as Director of Xodus Subsea.

Set up in September this year, Xodus is an oil and gas consulting and engineering firm with ambitious aims to win a substantial share of the oil and gas consulting market and embark on an extensive international strategy. The company which has three divisions: Xodus Subsea, Xodus Oil and Gas and Xodus Technology already employs 30 people.

“Global oil production from subsea wells is rapidly increasing with forecasts suggesting the subsea market will quadruple in the next few years,” says Heard. “Our uniquely integrated combination of subsea and flow assurance capabilities has the potential to add enormous value to our clients business at all phases of the development cycle from concept to operation.”

Heard joins Xodus from Penspen Limited where he was head of their Andrew Palmer Associates business stream, which provides engineering services to the offshore pipeline and subsea sector in the UK and overseas. In 2002, he was appointed to the executive board of Penspen, with responsibility for the strategic direction of the $40 million group. A mechanical engineer, Heard has twenty years post-graduate experience in engineering consultancy and business leadership. He has spent sixteen years directly in the subsea sector, having worked on major subsea projects around the world.

Commenting on his appointment, founding director of Xodus, Colin Manson, says: “Richard’s appointment is a major coup for us and sends a clear signal to the marketplace of our intent to be a major player in the subsea oil and gas sector. We have a unique, integrated offering involving process, flow assurance and subsea skills. Our innovative approach to attracting the necessary people is already bearing fruit across the group. We have already established a top-class front end engineering capability within our Subsea Division and Richard will develop this further.

“With a further ten new positions created, several contract wins and a move into new offices, Xodus is already ahead of its ambitious growth plans.”

Xodus is a multi-discipline consultancy specialising in the independent delivery of engineering services and software products that support the upstream oil and gas sector.

Aberdeen Press and Journal – October 2005

Engineers stage exodus to set up new consultancy
A few weeks ago, a new multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy was launched in Aberdeen. Quirkily named Xodus, the business was set up by a pair of senior engineers from long-established Genesis Oil & Gas Consultants.

Stephen Swindell, MD Xodus Oil and Gas, and Colin Manson, MD Xodus Technology, were with Genesis for nine and 15 years respectively. Basically, they had become stale, wanted a change and felt that they were the right age to take the risk and walk.

“What Genesis was offering was not where we wanted to be,” said Manson. “We felt we could offer something better. And we wanted independence. “Genesis has a parent company that, while it helped at times, also hindered. And we felt that, if we were independent, we could offer the marketplace a better service.”

Both had seen their former employer make the transition from being independent to becoming owned by Aker, then by CSO, which is now part of Technip. Neither of the duo were stakeholders in the Genesis business in its original form and, over time, had become progressively cheesed off at fattening someone else’s business. Latterly, both had also become concerned about where Genesis was going. It wasn’t clear, and that contributed to the desire to get out.

“We feel we will get greater rewards from our own business and I’m passionate about trying to make sure that people who work for Xodus get the rewards, too. And that was the one thing that frustrated me most during the later years at Genesis,” said Swindell. “I was getting fairly well rewarded… I couldn’t complain at my salary, but I wasn’t able to give the guys who worked under me decent bonuses. The oil companies were out there giving really healthy bonuses to their people whereas we, despite having excellent years, weren’t doing it.”

Xodus Group comprises a trio of divisions – oil and gas, subsea and technology.

“We split it up that way to give each specific focus. With Genesis, everything was sold under the banner of an oil and gas consultancy.” Said Swindell. “It was important for us to get away from the perception that Genesis was just a bunch of engineers, even though it wasn’t just a bunch of process engineers. We set up Xodus saying we have process engineers, but we’re much more than that… a subsea company, oil & gas consultancy and a technology company. But what we want to sell the client is an integrated, independent approach.”

Xodus already has 20 staff, with ambitions to grow that number rapidly. The Carden Place address is limited in terms of capacity to grow. Under the business plan, the medium case sees the company at 60 people within a year. This will bust the current office space, though there are plenty of options to relieve pressure, including seconding people to client oil companies as required and home-based working via a sophisticated IT network.

“That said, we’re already looking for new office space,” said Manson. “We know that we will want to move into a ‘head’ office some time early next year…around the centre of town. We want to portray a consultancy image, so we want to be west end. We’ll retain the current office…we see it as a project office.”

As for financing the business, the money comes from Manson and Swindell’s own resources, plus private investor the John Lawrie Group has stepped in with backing and the Royal Bank of Scotland has provided an overdraft/debt facility.

“The message for us on this is, most consultancies start off in the garage, get a project and recruit a couple of people,” said Manson “But we went out into the market, secured fairly substantial funding that allowed us to go straight for a nice office, proper IT infrastructure, good software and so forth. The backing means we’ve been able to go for a big bang, for a consultancy. “Of course, there’s a risk in what we’ve done. But, for me, the glass is always half full…I don’t see the risk the way other people see it. I also believe in my own abilities and know what the marketplace is like.”

Despite the current intractable skills shortage that bedevils progress in the North Sea, Manson and Swindell seem to have got around the problem. For a start, a significant number of Genesis engineers (15 or so) jumped ship.

“Yes it’s caused some grief, but we’ve patched that up because we don’t want to be seen as hiring from just Genesis. It’s the wrong message to send the marketplace. “We need to help bring new blood into this industry. One of the things as saw in Genesis was that work was being turned away, there was so much of it. So taking people from them is not a good solution. Aberdeen needs new blood and there is new blood out there.

“We have a raft of CVs. When you go and look for new blood in other places, it’s there. The clients (oil companies) are liking the fact that there’s a new consultancy in town bringing competition.”

Creation of Xodus, of course, begs the question as to who might one day do a copy-cat job by walking out and creating yet another consultancy, this time called Leviticus (after the third book in the Old Testament).

“By the time we get to Deuteronomy, we’ll hopefully be retired,” said Manson. “In reality, leaving Genesis to set up Xodus was a tough decision. “For me, personally, it was the most difficult decision of my life, but I’m delighted to have made it. There’s a new passion and drive in me and I know it’s going to be a success.”

Roustabout Magazine – September 2005

New high growth business gives jobs boost for Aberdeen
A new oil and gas consultancy has opened its doors for business wit the aim of taking a substantial share of the oil and gas consulting market.

Xodus Group will initially employ 20 multi-discipline engineers, with plans to grow its Aberdeen headquarters to 60 within the first year, before embarking on an ambitious international growth strategy. Xodus is a multi-discipline consultancy specialising in the independent delivery of software products and engineering services that support the upstream oil and gas sector. The Xodus Group will initially comprise three divisions: Xodus Subsea, Xodus Oil and Gas, and Xodus Technology. Future divisions, including training, are being considered as part of the pro-active strategy to support client requirements.

Set up by finance director Simon Cowie, and backed by the Royal Bank of Scotland, the company has appointed Colin Manson and Stephen Swindell as directors to drive the business forward. Mr Cowie says: “This is one of the strongest and most dynamic management teams to have ever been involved in a start-up in Aberdeen.

“Steve and Colin’s experience will provide a strong platform for Xodus to deliver the ambitious growth plans. This is demonstrated by the ability of the Group to attract significant investment and recruit the initial engineering base.”

Formerly with Genesis Oil and Gas Consultants Limited, a division of Technip, the directors believe that the market is ripe for a new independent, multi-discipline consultancy which focuses on being at the forefront of technological advances.

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