ADIL worked on the development with Chrysaor, the previous operator, and with Premier since it took over in January this year.

The Solan field is predicted to produce around 40 million barrels of oil, with the first production scheduled for the final quarter of 2014, which is when ADIL's contract extension runs until.

The 30-strong ADIL team will work on areas such as building an offshore production facility and a 300,000 barrel capacity subsea storage tank.

Andy Halliwell, development projects manager at ADIL, said: "This is a large, multi-faceted project. Most notably, it is ADIL's first major greenfield project requiring the construction of brand new offshore facilities.

"We are also supplying a much larger team than we have historically."

The production platform will not be permanently occupied so the oil is to be collected in the storage tank then exported to tankers.