Energy service giant Wood Group said yesterday it had won a £12million contract for work in Iraq, one of the world’s most hostile oil-producing nations.
Despite war in Iraq officially ending in 2010, people in the Middle Eastern country still face regular bombings and shootings.
A Wood Group spokeswoman said the firm had examined safety measures used by oil giant Shell at the Majnoon field and also carried out its own assessment of the facility and surrounding area. It said Wood Group-CCC (WGCCC), owned jointly by the Aberdeen firm’s PSN subsidiary and Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company, would commission the first phase of one of the world’s largest oil fields.
Under the one-year contract for Shell, WGCCC will work on Majnoon in southern Iraq, less than 45 miles from the city of Basra.
Wood Group said about 100 current employees would work on the project, but could not say if any would be from its Aberdeen offices. Up to a further 100 will be recruited to carry out the work, including Iraqis. WGCCC’s staff will be based at Majnoon, which is estimated to hold 38billion barrels of oil.
David Buchan, Wood Group PSN’s Middle East director and board director of WGCCC, said: “We will be supporting Shell on the start-up and commissioning of its facilities in the Majnoon field until steady state operations are achieved and the facilities begin operations. This is a significant contract for WGCCC and marks our continued expansion across the Middle East.”
The deal is Wood Group’s second in Iraq in less than six months.
At the end of last year, Wood Group PSN won a contract with DNO Middle East to provide engineering and project-support services to the Tawke field in the Kurdistan region. The contract was understood to be worth more than £10million. WGCCC employs more than 3,300 people, while Wood Group has a 43,000-strong workforce in 50 countries around the world.
North Sea health and safety experts are already working on the Majnoon project through energy skills body Opito, which has sent representatives to the field to support staff training at the site.
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