Aberdeen-based offshore lifting engineering specialist Sparrows said yesterday it had signed a new multimillion-pound contract with oil giant BP.
The company will provide all crane and lifting engineering services on BP’s 26 UK offshore installations and at four onshore terminals until 2015.
The contract, understood to be worth more than £15million annually, means Sparrows will have had an unbroken relationship spanning 40 years with BP in the North Sea.
It was 1975 when Sparrows sent its first offshore crane operator to work on BP’s Forties field.
Sparrows said it had been BP’s principal offshore lifting engineering and crane operating/maintenance contractor in the North Sea ever since.
The new deal is likely to create up to 10 jobs with Sparrows, in addition to keeping scores of employees in work.
Sparrows executive director for the eastern hemisphere Richard Wilson said: “The BP contract – Sparrows’ largest in the UK – provides secure employment for 140-150 Sparrows Aberdeen-based staff. Winning the new BP contract was an important measure of Sparrows ability to adapt to new client needs in the rapidly changing world energy market.
“In no way is the new contract a simple renewal of the previous deal; it represents new ways of delivering greater value to BP, while still maintaining the highest standards of safety and equipment integrity which are vital for safe offshore lifting operations.”
Chief executive Doug Sedge said: “Sparrows’ 40-year partnership with BP is an example of all that is best about what the oil and gas industry has brought to Aberdeen.
“As our first client in 1975, BP gave us the opportunity to form a new Aberdeen company. Their contracts have already provided 35 years – almost a career lifetime – of highly skilled and well paid work for 100-plus of our people locally.
“The company they helped us to create now employs around 1,500 people worldwide, more than 900 of them in Aberdeen and offshore UK, and is one of Aberdeen’s big success stories on the world energy services stage.”
Jeff Adams, 64, was one of the initial group of eight Sparrows crane operators assigned to work offshore on the Forties field and he is still working offshore with Sparrows today.
He said: “It was September 1, 1975, when I was assigned to operate the cranes on BP Forties Alpha. We practically watched the Forties jackets being installed. Those were pioneering days.
“Crane operation was considered the second riskiest job offshore after diving. Sparrows introduced a marked difference in crane operation offshore, as we managed to achieve an excellent level in safe operation.”
As regards the training they received, to prepare them to work offshore, Mr Adams said: “Well, there wasn’t much back then. We were thrown in at the deep end, and just got on with it.
“Later on in the 1970s, the first offshore survival training started. It consisted of showing us some slides of the work sites and environment offshore, and then sitting on an upturned rowing boat in Aberdeen harbour to learn about survival at sea.
“The first fire training was even more memorable. It took place in Dundee.
“We were asked to wear the breathing apparatus and walk uphill on one of Dundee’s main streets to experience the breathlessness resulting from the effort and the mask.”
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