Meet the Fast 100: Oil and gas software provider rides energy boom to fast growth

For Omega Project Solutions Inc., it pays to be a jack of all trades.

By Josh Cain, Associate Editor, HOUSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL. (18.08.14.)

The software solutions provider for the oil and gas industry has seen its business double in 2014 and expects another big year in 2015. Because of that growth, Omega is a nominee for Houston Business Journal's 2014 Fast 100, a ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the area.

"We don't really see any reason why we would slow down," President Oyvind Vik said. "Obviously, the energy boom helps."

Vik said Omega's Houston office, which is the U.S. headquarters of the Norway-based parent company, has been growing steadily since 2002 when it first set up here. The growth has all been organic, and Omega has gotten all the work it can handle from customers like Norway-based Statoil ASA (NYSE: STO) and BP PLC (NYSE: BP).

"We're not a company that says, 'Lets get in an extreme growth mode in the next few years.' We're very focused on being able to handle the growth and only taking on the the work that we can do. We want to keep our reputation," Vik said.

Omega's software products cover a wide range of services — document and cost controls, risk and quality management, among others — within an equally large spectrum of industries in oil and gas.

"Within each of those smaller areas, we have a lot of smaller competitors, but not as many that are as broad as we are," Vik said. "We've slowly been eating into more and more of our competitors' business and giving them more trouble with keeping their clients."

But hiring the right employees to keep up with all of the new business has been a struggle. The company has expanded from 48 employees in 2013 to 75 this year, and Vik said he expects to hire as many as 15 more.

Published: 25.08.14