The subsea arm of global conglomerate GE is to spend £16million on its Aberdeen and Montrose facilities over two years as it gears up for growth.
GE Oil and Gas Subsea Systems is spending £3.2million this year and £3.8million next year on its Aberdeen operations, including its manufacturing base at Bridge of Don, as part of a major upgrade.
At its Montrose manufacturing site, it is spending £3.8million this year and plans to spend a further £5.1million, expanding its machining capability, in 2013.
The investment follows Aberdeen being made the headquarters of GE’s global subsea business in June last year after it bought Vetco Gray in 2007, Hydril in 2008 and Wellstream – from Wood Group – last year, creating a £1.3billion revenue business.
It is being led by Rod Christie, chief executive of Subsea Systems, who said: “The industry is growing and we are growing with that. This will enable us to ramp up to the market and bring in more people so we can run with projects. Order growth will be very strong this year.”
The changes at Bridge of Don will also help the business deal with increasingly larger equipment, especially subsea xmas trees – used on the seabed to control wells – which are becoming bigger as developments get deeper.
Currently in the yard are a number of trees, weighing upwards of 80 tonnes each, being built for Chevron’s £27billion Gorgon LNG project off Australia. GE is building 20 subsea systems for the project.
Mr Christie said, however, that getting staff – especially project managers – was tough and the firm had about 150 jobs available in Aberdeen.
GE employs about 18,000 people in the UK, including some 2,500 at GE Oil and Gas. There are about 2,000 people in the subsea division with, about 900 in Aberdeen city and shire.