Norway's Aker creates 500 oil jobs across UK

EUROPE'S oil capital will receive a jobs boost today when Norwegian oil services giant Aker unveils plans to create 300 jobs in Aberdeen to cope with a surge in orders.

The Oslo-listed group, which is also opening an office in London and recruiting 200 staff south of the Border, already has some 2,500 workers in Scotland, spread across a range of sectors including engineering, underwater technology and well intervention.

A 19 per cent jump in orders since the start of the year has prompted the firm to expand its workforce, with the outlook for both the UK and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea - as well as Brazil, west Africa and Asia Pacific - remaining strong, the company said.

News of the jobs expansion comes just two days after trade body Oil & Gas UK revealed that its confidence index had risen during the second quarter as North Sea explorers and producers take stock following the Chancellor's surprise tax hike in March's Budget.

Aker, which turned over about 3.9 billion last year, said the majority of the new positions in Aberdeen will be in its subsea technology unit where 200 posts will be created.

A further 70 positions are being recruited to support work for maintaining and upgrading North Sea oil platforms in order to extend their field life. The remainder will be spread across its other services.

Alan Brunnen, managing director at Aker in Aberdeen, said: "Last year we decided to take a much more proactive recruitment approach. Since then our strategy has been to man up ahead of the big waves of work that we know are coming.

"That offers much greater predictability for our customers and ourselves."

Brunnen added: "We anticipate that workload levels will remain high over the coming years, which is why we are staffing up our UK organisation now. We want to be well placed to capitalise on future opportunities that arise in our markets."

The 200 posts in London will form a global engineering hub for the group, which has about 17,000 staff and a further 6,000 contractors in 30 countries.The Norwegian company already has smaller offices and facilities in Great Yarmouth, Maidenhead, Stockton-on-Tees and Whitstable.

Aker's focus on extending the life of North Sea platforms comes as Decom North Sea (DNS), the offshore oil and gas decommissioning forum, revealed that research conducted by the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen found there could be a 32 per cent shortage of skilled on-site personnel in the burgeoning industry.

UK North Sea decommissioning is expected to be worth about 1bn a year by 2015 as ageing oil production platforms are removed from the country's waters.

The skills warning follows similar comments from Trevor Garlick - head of oil giant BP's North Sea operations - who cautioned that a shortage of skilled engineers is threatening to hamper efforts to boost production.

BP is expected to recruit between 150 and 300 staff a year but admits that one of its biggest problems is finding the right people with the right skills.

According to industry body Opito, employers expect to create 10,000 oil and gas jobs within the next five years. However, more than half warn that attracting skilled staff is a key challenge, the group's latest analysis based on 144 companies shows.