ABERDEEN'S John Wood Group has tied up a major international alliance.

Wood Group Gas Turbines, already a world leader in providing repair and overhaul services to industrial gas turbine users, is teaming up with Dresser-Rand, itself a partnership between

Halliburton of Dallas (recently merged with Dresser Industries) and Ingersoll-Rand of New Jersey.

Dresser-Rand is the world's biggest maker of compressors, which are powered by gas

turbines, and the agreement will allow both companies to meet market demand for an integrated, packaged service which can offer long-term maintenance and

operation contracts.

Tom Motherwell, chairman and chief executive of Wood Group Gas Turbines, said: ''Increasingly in the industry people are looking to outsource bigger chunks of work, which might be the operation and maintenance of the

complete compressor package.''

Wood Group Gas Turbines will now come in behind 700 operation and maintenance packages already sold world-wide by Dresser-Rand, as well as new contracts.

The group employs 1400 people, more than half of them in Scotland, and operates through joint ventures in Aberdeen with Rolls-Royce and in Calgary, Canada, with GE, as well as through a wholly-owned

subsidiary in Miami.

Motherwell added: ''For

customers, the single contact for total maintenance solutions will reduce costs, increase efficiency and reliability and provide experienced OEM (original equipment

manufacturer) support and repairs, product improvement,

and the resolution of operational

problems.''