A DIRECTOR of Wood Group said investing in the North Sea remains a priority for the company in spite of the recent fall in oil prices after it unveiled plans to recruit another 150 skilled people in Scotland.
Bob Keiller, chief executive of the Wood Group PSN division, said the North Sea is still an important market for the oil services giant which has operations in 50 countries.
Wood Group PSN wants to increase staffing levels to cash in on the efforts of oil and gas firms to squeeze every drop out of North Sea reservoirs.
Created following the $955 million (£608m) take-over of PSN by Wood Group in 2010, the division Mr Keiller runs has been thriving this year amid strong activity levels in the North Sea. It specialises in running and maintaining assets like North Sea platforms.
The fall in oil prices from $128 per barrel to around $100 per barrel this year may affect oil and gas firms' enthusiasm for developing some new production facilities if it is sustained.
However, Mr Keiller said: "Our business is focused on helping our clients to get the most from their existing assets, so we are less impacted by the oil price.
"The North Sea con-tinues to be an important market for Wood Group PSN and investment to continue growing our business here remains a priority."
Wood Group PSN is creating the extra jobs in a new arm of the business to help it increase its share of the lucrative market to help oil and gas firms modify existing facilities.
Andy Mackay, projects business manager at WGPSN said: "We see many of our current and potential customers making significant capital investments in their installations to maximise production volumes.
"Such projects include subsea tie-backs, the addition of new modules and in some cases new bridge linked platforms to extend the life of existing infrastructure ... we are further developing our capability to offer comprehensive support to all phases of a project from study to hook-up and commissioning."
The move underlines the value of the oil and gas industry as a source of employment at a time when the economy is stuttering.
Wood Group PSN has hired more than 1000 new employees in the year to date in the UK, where it has around 8300 people working on and offshore.
Most of the jobs will be in Aberdeen but the company confirmed some are likely to be in Glasgow, where it employs 430 people.
Mike Tholen, UK economics director for the industry group Oil & Gas UK, said North Sea operators would be keeping a close eye on the oil price.
However, he added: "Projects tend to be planned over the much longer term and factored in to the planning is the probability of fluctuating prices.
"We've recently seen a number of major announcements regarding com-panies' intentions to invest heavily in the North Sea and to create jobs and this shows no sign of slowing down in the short-term.
"That said, the North Sea is a costly and technically challenging province."
Last week, Wood Group said it has delivered good growth in the year to date and remains confident of meeting analysts' expectations for 2012.
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