WOOD Group has shed 12 jobs in Aberdeen after starting to out-source accounting work to India amid the crude price plunge.

The Aberdeen-based oil services giant said some UK supplier payments work has been moved to Delhi as part of efforts to increase efficiency amid challenging market conditions.

The work is the first transferred from the UK to the accounting centre that Wood Group established in Delhi in 2014.

Asked if more work could be transferred there from the UK, a spokesperson for Wood Group said: “Whilst we are not currently planning to move more UK jobs to Delhi we constantly have to consider all cost efficiencies in today’s challenging market.”

The move provides further evidence of the damage that is being inflicted on the jobs market in Scotland as oil and gas firms slash activity in response to the slump in crude prices.

Last month Wood Group said it had shed around 1,000 jobs in the UK North Sea since June. It axed 1,000 jobs in the UK in the first half of last year.

Wood Group, which is led by chief executive Robin Watson, said five accounts payable staff remain in Aberdeen in the department affected by the latest move. Five have been redeployed.

Wood’s Delhi centre processes financial transactions for its operations in areas such as Africa and Australia.

Separately the group said it has won a contract to help Shell to develop the subsea facilties that will be used on the giant Prelude, Floating Liquefied Natural Gas project off Western Australia. The value of the three year deal was not disclosed.