Sodexo lands ‘fantastic’ extension to services deal

THE catering giant that provides food at Hampden Park, Pittodrie Stadium and the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, has landed a £21 million offshore contract.

Sodexo will provide catering, cleaning and other services to the oil exploration and production company, which is understood to be New York-listed ConocoPhillips.

The Paris-listed company’s Prestige subsidiary will clean and provide food at the client’s facilities at Aberdeen, Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire, and Teesside.

The firm’s remote sites division – which serves about 130 clients from its North Sea head office in Aberdeen, as well as satellite operations in Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway – will provide accommodation on oil rigs and some engineering services back on land.

Sodexo signed its original contract with ConocoPhillips in 2006 and the deal has now been extended for a further two years.

Paul Cowie, account director for Sodexo Prestige in Scotland, said: “This is a fantastic contract extension for us.”

About 35,000 of Sodexo’s 413,000 staff are based in the UK, working with clients at 2,300 locations, including the Chelsea Flower Show, various sites for golf’s Open Championship and Royal Ascot.

The firm turns over about £1 billion a year in the UK out of its total revenues of €16bn (£13bn), which come from 80 countries.

ConocoPhillips has been operating in the UK since 1964 and its larger fields include Britannia, one of the largest gas fields in the North Sea. The firm – which last month de-merged Phillips 66, its US filling station business – also has a stake in BP’s massive Clair field to the west of Shetland.