ABERDEEN-BASED Wood Group launched its sponsorship yesterday of a professorial chair in arctic engineering at the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) in St John’s, Canada.
Mike Straughen, chief executive of Wood Group’s engineering activities, said that, over a five-year period, the international energy service company was investing about £281,000 in sponsorship of the Wood Group Chair in Arctic and Cold Region Engineering. He added: “We already collaborate with the university through JP Kenny and IMV, our engineering company based in St John’s.
“Our goal is to develop leading-edge technology so we can source new engineering solutions for our clients operating in these emerging, strategic regions.
“MUN is a recognised leader in this area, with a track record for research into the unique challenges of ocean and ice engineering such as seabed ice gouging and ice loads on ships.
“The combination of MUN’s expertise with Wood Group’s experience working in the cold regions of Canada, Alaska and Russia, through our IMV, Mustang and JP Kenny engineering companies will enable us to jointly find safe, cost-effective solutions for these untapped reserves.
“Exploration in the Arctic is still in its infancy and surveys produced by the US Geological Agency suggest the area may contain as much as one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves. It is estimated that the Arctic may hold as much as 90billion barrels of undiscovered oil reserves and 1,670trillion cubic feet of natural gas.”