OIL services tycoon Alasdair Locke is launching a new venture to target the burgeoning decommissioning market in the North Sea as the crude price plunge results in growing numbers of fields being shut down.

Mr Locke has teamed up with North Sea veterans Mark Patterson and Paul Warwick to form the Well-Safe Solutions business to support oil and gas firms which want to plug and abandon wells.

The men have made the move at a time when spending on decommissioning in the North Sea is expected to spiral.

Signalling confidence in the size of the prize on offer they have set out to raise £200 million investment to develop the business. They expect it to create 400 jobs within the first three years.

Mr Locke, who sold the Abbot Group drilling business he founded for £906 million in 2008, said: “I am honoured to be given the opportunity to re-engage with the sector at this pivotal time.”

He expects the Well-Safe business which he will chair to become a market leader by helping to reduce the costs involved in dealing with spent wells.

Around 5,000 will need to be decommissioned in the North Sea in coming decades as they reach the end of their useful lives.

The crude price fall since 2014 has prompted some firms to bring forward plans to shut down older fields.

Spending on decommissioning in the North Sea is expected to double to £1.7billion this year. The cost of plugging and abandoning wells accounts for around 60 per cent of decommissioning bills.

Well-Safe said it had won investment from the state-funded Scottish Investment Bank, without giving details. The founders have invested undisclosed amounts in the firm.