Subsea 7 deals pass £180m mark

Subsea 7, the Aberdeen-based offshore engineering and construction company, yesterday announced it had won a £62.7 million contract in the North Sea.

The deal with an unnamed client takes the total orders for a "pipeline bundle system" developed by the firm to more than 180m in the past six weeks.

The latest contract is to engineer, fabricate and install one of the systems, which combine pipework, valves and control systems in a single structure that can be assembled onshore before being towed to an oilfield.

Fabrication work on the bundles is carried out at Subsea 7's Wick facility, in Caithness, where 100 staff are employed.

Offshore installation is scheduled for the first half of 2012.

The company said it hoped to be able to name the customer later this week.

In June, Acergy - the Norwegian marine engineering firm that also has a major presence in Aberdeen - acquired Subsea 7 in a share deal that valued the firm at 1.6 billion.

The deal will create an industry leader in undersea engineering and construction, with a combined workforce of 12,000 and combined order book totalling 5.3bn.

Subsea 7 - which employs 1,000 people at its UK headquarters in Aberdeen and has further bases in Leith and Wick as well as sites across the world - was founded by Norwegian investor Kristian Siem.

Siem will become chairman of the combined entity, which will be called Subsea 7.