Ikon GeoPressure wins Queen’s Award for Enterprise

Ikon GeoPressure, which spun out of Durham University in 1997 as GeoPressure Technology, has picked up the Queen’s Award for Enterprise 2014. The company received the award for its outstanding performance in growing international trade.

International trade has indeed increased dramatically for the company, as it has managed to raise overseas earnings by 771% over the past six years and has expanded into 22 new markets across the Americas, Africa and Asia.

The company was formed in the late nineties as a spin-out from industry consortium-based research originating at Durham University’s Department of Earth Sciences. It was founded by Richard Swarbrick, professor at the department, and followed several decades of academic research and geologically-based industry experience — research that led to Ikon developing its trademark RokDoc GeoPressure software and Roknowledge digital regional studies.  Its products are now used  by oil companies to safely explore and develop the world’s oil and gas fields.

The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise is an awards programme for British businesses and  organisations who excel at international trade, innovation or sustainable development. They are the most prestigious official UK awards, and were established by a royal warrant of 30 November 1965, with the first being awarded in 1966.

Richard Swarbrick said: “The high quality research at Durham paved the way for Ikon GeoPressure’s innovative and rigorous methods for predicting subsurface pressures, which are now being globally accepted by industry. The emphasis on relating geological environment to relevant industry data has led to better understanding of mechanisms and magnitude of pressures, especially in deep reservoirs. Durham continues to conduct leading research in this area with its industry-funded GeoPOP3 research programme in collaboration with Ikon GeoPressure.”