North Sea decommissioning start-up Well-Safe Solutions today announced two more senior appointments and revealed where it will be based.
Well-Safe, launched in July, said it had signed a five-year lease for office space at Hill of Rubislaw in Aberdeen.
The company said there would be room for more than 60 people at the premises and that it would be moving in this week.
Well-Safe currently has a senior team of eight industry stalwarts and has boosted its headcount to 20.
Well-Safe said today that it had hired Jim Christie as the firm’s director of programmes.
Mr Christie was head of decommissioning at the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) until his departure in June.
He was responsible for the development of the UK’s decommissioning strategy in his time at the regulator.
Prior to his stint at the OGA, Mr Christie was global decommissioning projects manager with Marathon Oil in Houston.
He joined Marathon in 1984 and subsequently worked on the decommissioning of the Brae field in the North Sea.
Speaking on the eve of Offshore Europe, Well-Safe founder and executive director Mark Patterson said Mr Christie’s experience would be invaluable as Well-Safe intends to work with the OGA to help operators navigate what it described as a “complex” regulatory processes.
Mr Patterson said: “Jim’s appointment is highly significant and a major boost in our ambition to become a leader in plug and abandonment in the decommissioning sector.
“Retaining and sharing lessons learned, we will deliver safe, efficient well P&A operations in collaboration with our clients and stakeholders which result in significant cost reductions.
“The response from industry since our launch has been incredible and we are gaining huge support for our complete package offering.”
Well-Safe has also recruited Alan Cormack as its finance director.
Mr Cormack joins from Raeburn Recruitment where he was head of finance. Before that, he worked with Mr Patterson as finance director at Nautronix for almost a decade.
Well-Safe was set up by North Sea stalwarts Mark Patterson, Alasdair Locke and Paul Warwick and is being billed as a one-stop-shop for oil companies’ well P&A needs.
Within a week of its launch, the company had announced its first acquisition and the appointment of a chief executive.
The start-up is confident its approach can lower well P&A costs by about a third.
Its bosses hope to attract £200million of investment, create 400 jobs and turn the company into a centre of excellence for well P&A.
Well-Safe’s management team intends to have bought a rig and agreed a first contract within two years.
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