MORE than 160 jobs are to be created after a £5million investment by a Buchan-based engineering group.
Peterhead’s Score Group, already one of the area’s biggest employers, unveiled a new base for its Score Subsea and Wellhead business at its Wellbank site yesterday.
The William Urquhart Building is named after the division’s managing director, who has been hailed as one of the top specialists in valve engineering.
About 30 people are already working in the premises – but that figure will rise to about 200 over the next five years.
Mr Urquhart said: “The future looks good. The North Sea business is on the up for the time being and there are bigger things to come for sure.”
The subsea sector has been described as booming, with industry body Subsea UK estimating there would be 10,000 jobs in the sector in the UK over the next year. Score Subsea and Wellhead was set up in 2008 and provides support services to the subsea oil and gas sector, servicing mainly valves, actuators and controls systems, as well as specialist testing systems. This includes hyperbaric testing facilities – part of the £5million investment.
The company also has the contract to service, manage and make ready for deployment a special subsea capping device developed by Wild Well Control, which helped BP plug its Macondo well after the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
The equipment, designed in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster, is now based at Score’s new facility for potential emergency deployment anywhere in the world.
Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce president George Yule said the investment announced by Score was “fantastic news” for the area.
“Score is an indigenous company and a major investor in Aberdeenshire,” he said. “This represents a terrific boost for the local economy. The directors of Score are to be congratulated on the back of this major investment into the Peterhead area.”
Peterhead South and Cruden councillor Stephen Smith said the “huge investment by a local company” was very welcome.
“It underlines what we already know about the resilience of the Buchan economy in terms of local employment, investment and companies,” he said.
“Peterhead town centre needs regeneration and that will be much easier to do on the back of local industries being successful and providing employment.
“In that respect, Peterhead has a head start on other towns.”
Fellow Peterhead South and Cruden councillor Tom Malone added: “This is fantastic news for Peterhead and Score is one of our long-term employers.
“This will also fit in with the council’s plans to regenerate Peterhead.
“This news comes at a time when other areas in Scotland are struggling economically.
“This announcement is not just good news in the short term but for the longer term as well and we can only hope that other initiatives will follow.”
Score Group, which specialises in engineering and servicing valves and gas turbines for the oil and gas industry, currently employs more than 800 people at Peterhead and 1,500 globally.
The Score (Europe) apprentice training programme is the largest of its type in Scotland, with more than 300 apprentices completing a six-year training programme.
The group was founded by chairman Charles Ritchie in 1982 and now has bases in more than 30 countries.
In 2010-11, the firm opened an office in Perth, Australia, and workshops in Jakarta, Indonesia, in addition to expanding its operations at Sandessjoen, Norway, and Great Yarmouth, England.
In its latest accounts, the year to September 28, 2011, the firm posted a turnover of £116.83million and profits of £8.83million.