Oil and gas start-up receives investment boost

Raptor Oil will use funding to develop technology to reliably deliver high value data into and out of the wellbore

An Aberdeen-based company has received a £1.5 million boost to develop new technology for the oil and gas sector, including £1.1 million from private sector funders including Statoil, as well as £400,000 from public body Scottish Enterprise.

Start-up firm Raptor Oil was formed to meet the challenge of reliably delivering high-value data into and out of the wellbore.

Raptor is using proven proprietary signal processing technology to deliver a bi-directional wireless communication system with low latency and high data rate transmission capabilities.

The project is the first to receive funding through the Seek and Solve programme, a partnership between Statoil and Scottish Enterprise aimed at encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises to invest in developing new technologies.

Gordon Cowie, chief executive of Raptor Oil, said the company would seek to refine its "potentially ground breaking" technology by replicating real-life conditions at a purpose built test site in Aberdeen.

Richard Erskine, head of Statoil Technology Invest, said: "Statoil believes wireless telemetry has the potential to revolutionise in-well communication and we are delighted to be cooperating with Scottish Enterprise in funding this technology development.

"Hopefully Raptor is only the first of many such funding opportunities we will cooperate on as we continue to hunt for good ideas across Scotland."

Scottish Enterprise chief executive Lena Wilson added: "In the last year alone we've helped more than £6.13 million worth of innovation projects within oil and gas supply chain companies and supported key projects such as the new Oil and Gas Innovation Centre.

"Investing in innovation in this sector is vital to its long term future and we intend to do as much as possible to stimulate that in the coming years."

Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy and shadow chancellor Ed Balls are due to meet with senior Oil and Gas UK representatives in London today.