INSPECTION, repair and maintenance specialist RBG has re-secured its contract with Apache, covering services in the UK North Sea Forties field.
The US independent has simultaneously exercised both one-year options to the original three-year arrangement.
The work is worth some £30million and ensures continuity for around 100 employees of the Aberdeen company, which was acquired by Dutch group Stork early this year.
This means that they will continue to deliver fabric maintenance, deck and mechanical services, specialist cleaning, access solutions and rigging services in the Forties field, which is Apache’s North Sea flagship.
Energy can reveal that RBG is also tendering North Sea work with Total, and chief executive Dave Workman is expecting the outcome in the near future. He also sees a busy year ahead for the company.
“Our current revenues target for 2011 is £320million – up around 10% on last year, and the general view is that 2012 will be busier, much busier,” said Mr Workman.
“But one of the issues that we may face in the North Sea is equipment availability, as there is so much demand out there in the marketplace.”
Mr Workman added the integration of RBG into Stork Technical Services had proved much less of a challenge than had been expected; indeed, it had so far been a considerable success.
He said Stork had decided that RBG’s Reach safety programme, which has apparently proved “game changing” for the firm during its 18 months of operation, will now be rolled out group-wide.
“What that does is demonstrate the real value of the acquisition of RBG. It is not just a solid UK-base business but also has allowed the acquisition of systems and processes that we believe are market leading.
“Reach is on the cusp of being rolled out across the whole of STS’s global operation.
“Mike Mann, who has been our corporate HSEQ (health, safety, environment and quality) director, will take on the responsibility within Stork.
“But this isn’t simply about taking a safety concept, plugging it in the wall, flicking the switch and on it comes. It will take at least six months to get Reach up and running.
“There is a sizeable safety team at STS already, bearing in mind that even before acquiring RBG, Stork had 10,000 employees.”
Mr Workman said his team had spent a lot of time on marrying the assessment, inspection and repair capabilities of RBG and STS together, they were now able to deliver an “end-to-end asset integrity piece”.
He added: “We recognise that most if not all of our customers use a number of different service providers in the area of asset integrity.
“As a result of the acquisition of RBG, Stork now has an end-to-end asset integrity capability, and the ability to do the assessment, the inspection and the repair work from one service provider.
“We think that offers tremendous opportunities, not only in terms of cutting out interfaces that cause confusion and complexity. It is also an opportunity to reduce manning levels offshore through the use of multi-skilled teams, and to use further advanced inspection techniques already deployed in locations like the Gulf of Mexico, but in the North Sea.”