Wood seals £250m deal for Premier Oil platform

The vessel is currently operating in the North Sea on oilfields about 120 miles from Aberdeen, and Wood Group PSN will service the contract with a team based in Premier Oil’s offices in the city.

Work starts on 1 May and will run until 2020, securing the jobs of more than 70 offshore staff and creating up to 15 full-time onshore positions.

Robin Watson, UK managing director for Wood Group PSN, said the contract was a “significant win”.

He said: “We will be focusing our energy on working in close partnership with Premier Oil to deliver safe operations that add value to the company’s North Sea business and support future growth.”

The commission will allow Wood Group PSN to nurture its relationship with a key client after it previously worked with Premier Oil to successfully commission and decommission the floating production storage and offloading system Sevan Voyageur in the North Sea.

Oil services heavyweight Wood Group bought Production Services Network (PSN) in January 2011 for £600m.

But in December it revealed the newly-combined Wood Group PSN had lost two big contracts and had encountered problems with projects in the Middle East and South America, affecting its performance.

Yet, in a pre-close update ahead of its full-year results in March, Wood Group said the integration of PSN was “progressing well” and that demand remained strong in the North Sea.

Last week it secured a £75m contract from oil giant Shell for engineering work at its St Fergus and Mossmorran gas terminals. The company also announced yesterday that non-executive directors John Morgan and former STV chairman and Aggreko executive chairman Chris Masters will retire from the board at the firm’s annual meeting in May. David Woodward, another independent non-executive, will replace Morgan as chairman of the firm’s remuneration committee.