WOOD expects to create jobs in its North Sea operations after winning a contract worth around $75 million (£58m) to work on a giant oil field East of Shetland.
The Aberdeen-based engineering giant has been engaged to provide services such as maintenance and modifications on Mariner field facilities for Equinor.
The win is a notable success for Wood. It comes as oil services firms operating in the wider North Sea area face big challenges amid the fallout from the coronavirus crisis.
READ MORE: Surrender of North Sea stalwart underlines scale of upheaval in area
This has prompted firms that operate North Sea oil and gas fields to cut spending in areas other than essential maintenance to the bone.
Wood said work on the three-year Mariner contract will be completed by its teams operating in Aberdeen and offshore, with support from engineering staff in its operations overseas.
It said the contract will support around 100 positions, including an unspecified number of new ones.
Wood is probably hoping the Mariner contract could pave the way to the company winning more work on the field.
Equinor only started production from the 300 million-barrel Mariner field in August last year.
The Norwegian oil giant has said that Mariner is expected to remain in production for around 30 years.
READ MORE: Norwegian oil and gas giant underlines commitment to UK
Wood expects to be able to use expertise in areas such as digital technology to help oil and gas firms operate fields such as Mariner cost effectively.
Craig Shanaghey, president of the group’s operations services business in Europe and Africa, said: “With Wood’s ambition to realise a digitally-enabled future, we see excellent potential to explore new opportunities that will promote a lifetime of sustainable and responsible operations at the field.”
Mariner was found in 1981 but was long thought to be too hard to develop commercially. Equinor, which used to be called Statoil, used modern technologies to improve the field economics.
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