They say life begins at 40

But for Expro, celebrating four decades of delivering leading technology and innovation to the oil and gas industry is as much about acknowledging the tremendous achievements made to date, as it is about looking to the future with justifiable confidence, pride and enthusiasm.

In many ways, the story of Expro over the last forty years mirrors the story of the oil and gas industry as a whole, as both have seen many exciting challenges and successes in this period.

The now familiar international Expro brand started out with the far-reaching vision of competing successfully, on a global basis, with the major international service companies.

Today, Expro is a leading international oilfield service provider, employing 5,000 people in 50 countries, across all major continents. But the company was formed from more humble beginnings on April 12 1973, when John Trewhella, Jim Ross and Humphry Green established ‘Exploration and Production Services (North Sea) Ltd’ in Great Yarmouth.

Two years later, on June 11 1975, Expro was heavily involved in the birth of the oil industry in the North Sea, producing the first oil from the Argyll field. In that same year the company opened its first premises in Aberdeen.

Establishment of an office in Holland and enhanced geographic spread followed, and as more work began to be undertaken in ever more widespread locations, an increasing number of regional bases were established to provide support.

The 1980s saw Expro take this growth a stage further. The company expanded into China, Tunisia, Thailand, Libya and Malaysia, followed by the acquisition of data acquisition and sampling company Exal. The decade ended with Expro securing its first fully integrated well services contract.

The 1990s brought further rapid growth, including the opening of offices in Houston and South Africa, expansion into Norway, Kazakhstan and Brazil, flotation on the London Stock Exchange and, in technology terms, the development of the first big bore subsea landing string. Expro also made a number of major acquisitions in the 1990s to enhance its portfolio and service offering, including Tronic, Oilserv Australia and Saltus Sub Surface Services.

Expro’s focused growth strategy continued on into the new century with further acquisitions including Tripoint, Kinley Corporation, Surface Productions Solutions and PowerWell Services, including Petrotech, DHV and the CaTS cableless telemetry technology. A new office was opened in Broussard and the company itself was acquired by the private equity consortium Umbrellastream Ltd in 2008. Since then Expro has acquired Expro Meters and PTI.

As words and sentences, this very brief run through of Expro’s timeline represents an outstanding and impressive array of achievements. But behind each footnote in the company’s history lies a story of determination, innovation, drive, safety and commitment from everybody who works for the company.

That’s why we are sure that in looking to our next 40 years, Expro’s success will continue to grow based on the excellent work that its people carry out every day, in every corner of the world on behalf of the company.

Everyone who has ever been involved with Expro has helped it reach this significant landmark and the company looks to sharing further successes with you, Expro’s clients and employees, as we go forward together.