ENEGI Oil has said its floating buoy technology venture has secured major international partners for its plans to develop marginal fields using lower cost methods.

The AIM-listed business confirmed Kongsberg Maritime and Braemar ACM Shipbroking have signed up to help its ABT Oil and Gas (ABTOG) further progress its plans.

Enegi markets unmanned production buoy systems which are said to reduce expenses in areas such as construction, operation and decommissioning.

Now Kongsberg and Braemar have signed up as the first consortium partners for the delivery of what Enegi is calling its "marginal field initiative".

It believes the buoy technology can make fields around the world, including in the North Sea, which are currently uneconomic using conventional development solutions into viable producing assets.

Kongsberg, which has Scottish bases in Aberdeen, is going to provide remote control and monitoring technology for the unmanned developments.

Meanwhile Braemar, which has Scottish sites in Dundee, Edinburgh, Grangemouth and Aberdeen, is to work on sourcing finance along with doing global asset and shipyard negotiations as well as potential field identification.

All three parties will also market the technology around the world.

Alan Minty, chief executive of Enegi, said: "We continue to believe that the Marginal Field Initiative is a truly global opportunity.

"The agreements that ABTOG has completed with these major industry players further justifies this belief whilst greatly endorsing and providing further credibility to our initiative."

Mr Minty, a former Scottish squash international, confirmed the business is in talks with other potential partners in areas including engineering design, project management, funding and fabrication.

Dean Jennings, the Aberdeen based sales manager of Kongsberg's UK & Ireland Offshore Production Units division, the business will be working to provide a proof of concept for the remote control operation of installations in order to satisfy regulators and operators.

He said: "The effect that normally unattended operations could have on operating expense is enormous. We fully endorse ABTOG's belief that normally unattended operations offer significant potential for the advancement of offshore oil and gas production particularly at this time when the industry is focussed on cost reduction.

"The Proof of Concept for the remote control, monitoring, automation and operation of offshore oil and gas production installations will deliver considerable economic cost savings making the development of marginal fields a significant and viable proposition."

James Kidwell, chief executive of Braemar Shipping Services, said: "ABTOG's business model and strategy is very timely as the industry is looking closely at costs and how to continue to ensure effective economic future production.

"We believe that this has the potential to be a considerable initiative. The ability of ABTOG's solutions to significantly reduce the [operating expenditure] and [capital expenditure] on oil and gas development projects and the returns that can be gained will in our view undoubtedly appeal to operators and investors alike."

Scottish oil services and engineering giant Wood Group has previously signed a memorandum of understanding with Enegi and ABTOG to help develop the floating buoys and production towers.

The buoys under are designed to sit just below the surface of the water and be attached to wells on the seabed.

They include facilities to separate oil from gas and to store the output which can then be unloaded to tankers.