This week Petrosys became the latest acquisition of Constellation subsidiary Vela, which operates a variety of vertical market software companies.

 

Unlike venture capital entities, Vela generally keeps their acquisitions' management teams, and clearly saw in Tidemann's 15 years at Petrosys in technology development and geology as a catalyst to drive the Adelaide company's continued growth.

 

Before arriving at Petrosys in 2002, Tidemann spent six years at Schlumberger in Houston and Australia including the implementation, support and training around software and data management systems for major oil and gas companies in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane.

 

"Our new owners see we need to grow and develop our relationships with customers," Tidemann told Energy News.

 

"We have about 350 clients in oil and gas space who want to be able to work with people who can ensure the products and technology we're developing continues to deepen."

 

The next step is to focus on ensuring those core technologies and products improve significantly, and Tidemann said he was considering both organic and inorganic growth.

 

"We have a terrific, domain specific tech development group in Adelaide; or [growth can occur] through acquisitions that fit within that environment or broaden our footprint," he said.

 

"We now have the resources for both organic and non-organic growth."

 

He also sees opportunities to extend Petrosys' geographic reach.

 

"We have trusted clients in some markets, but South America, Africa and China are areas of growth and opportunity for us, so some additional reach and investment in those places to take the good products we know work in other markets," he said.

 

The bulk of Petrosys' clients are evenly distributed between North America, mainland Europe and Australia-Asia.

 

"A small company like ourselves has been able to grow internationally pretty successfully, but now we can accelerate that into Latin America, Russia, Africa, China and some other places," Tidemann said.

 

"There are areas where we [can] explore synergies with other sister companies and some of the buying power we may need for various other aspects of running the business.

 

"But the people who have been supporting and running the business remain in place."

 

Part-owner, Petrosys founder Volker Hirsinger, will continue in his role as vice president Americas.