SHELL Expro has signed a series of long-term contracts worth more than #650m which it claims will safeguard thousands of jobs in the North Sea industries.
The contracts, for which service companies have competitively tendered, involvestreamlining the way services are provided for Shell's offshore operations in the central and northern North Sea.
They combine design, maintenance and facilities modifications into a single contract for particular groups of platforms and although fewer in number, are wider in scope and are for seven years.
Known as integrated service contracts, they will cover a number of platforms. Wood Group Engineering has won the award for the four platforms in the Brent Field.
Amec Process and Energy has been successful for the other five platforms in the East Shetland Basin - Dunlin, Cormorant Alpha, North Cormorant, Tern and Eider - and Brown and Root AOC will provide services for the Fulmar, Auk, Gannet, Kittiwake and Anasuria FPSO in the central North Sea.
Previously seven contracts covered the same work. The contracts will start next year.
''These contracts, which will help provide job security for about 2000 skilled workers onshore and offshore, will initially be for a seven-year period and could potentially be extended for the entire life of these facilities, said Malcolm Brinded, oil and technical services director of Shell Expro.
''There is the potential for significantly-improved effectiveness giving at least 15% savings in engineering and maintenance costs over the next few years, which will be vital to prolong field life in many cases to 2010 and beyond.''
He said that although the contracts were larger than in the past, they did not diminish the chances for smaller companies to offer services to the main contractors in specialised areas and Shell Expro would encourage these opportunities.
''The length of the contracts provides a secure base load of work for those contractors, and should enable them to operate more effectively in terms of their staff development and training,'' said Brent Field engineering manager Tony Brown.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article