ECOSSE Subsea Systems has said oil and gas business has slowed following the fall in the price of crude but work in the renewables sector has been compensating.
The Aberdeenshire-based firm, which specialises in work like seabed clearance, said it had already suffered from the effects of the fall in the oil price since June with delays on a number of oil and gas projects.
"There are a number of contracts valued at about £5 million which we would have expected to land but so far have not been awarded and I would expect this situation to continue as long as we have a depressed oil price," said managing director, Mike Wilson.
However, the company increased turnover for the year to March.
Privately-owned Ecosse Subsea said it has felt the benefit of diversification from its traditional oil and gas market into sectors such as renewables.
The company said its technologies are in high demand for seabed clearance work, trenching and cable laying projects.
The renewables sector now accounts for 55 per cent of the projects it works on.
In recent months Ecosse Subsea has worked on a £5.4 million contract on the Baltic 2 windfarm offshore Germany and a multi-million pound cable-lay contract for a utilities provider in the Humber Estuary.
It has signed a Letter of Intent with ABB to provide seabed clearing and trenching services on the 100-mile £1.2 billion Caithness-Moray electricity transmission link project.
ABB is working on the cabling aspect of the undersea link on behalf of SSE.
The cable will carry 1.2 gigawatts of renewable energy generated in Scotland into the main UK network.
The success of Ecosse Subsea will be studied with interest by oil and gas services firms. It may encourage hopes that activity in areas like renewables will offset the effect of the slow down in the North Sea oil and gas market.
Mr Wilson, said: "The results are extremely encouraging and confirm that our technologies are equally suited to and easily transferable between the oil and gas sector, which is where we cut our teeth, and the green energy market."
Ecosse Subsea increased turnover by 88 per cent to a record £15.6m in the year to March 2014, from £8.3m in the previous year helped by its success in renewables.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose to £3.4m from £1.02m.
The company employs 70 people offshore and at its headquarters in Banchory, with numbers increasing to more than 100 when offshore projects are in progress.
Separately Aberdeen-based ROVOP, which provides subsea Remotely Operated Vehicles for use in industries like oil and gas and offshore wind, has established a Western Hemisphere headquarters and support base in Houston Texas.
The company said it has appointed three veterans of the ROV industry, Scott Wagner, Brett "Gonzo" Eychner and Wayne Betts, to lead the operation.
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