THE boss of international engineering and project-management company AMEC said yesterday that North America offered very good potential for growth.
The area is currently responsible for about half of the British group’s worldwide workforce of more than 21,000.
Chief executive Samir Brikho told the Press and Journal at OTC that his company had a strong position in North America, adding: “We would like to build on this.”
AMEC’s Houston office is the hub for its oil and gas work in the US and Canada. The US city is the group’s deepwater centre of excellence, with key projects in Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, and west Africa.
It emerged last month that Aberdeen was to get a job boost from AMEC.
The firm has been appointed by Xcite Energy Resources to do consultancy work to help develop the Bentley heavy oil field in the North Sea, 100 miles east of Shetland.
Bentley is one of the largest proven but undeveloped fields in UK waters and the estimated total development cost is more than £1billion.
The value of the deal to AMEC has not been announced, although it is understood it could run into millions of pounds.
AMEC said its project would be run from its Aberdeen office. An initial 10 people will work on the contract, rising to more than 100. These workers would be a mix of existing AMEC employees and new starts, with most of them based in the Granite City.
The company’s natural resources operation is based in Aberdeen, where it employs about 3,000 people.