Bond Offshore Helicopters said yesterday it had won a £16million contract for work in the North Sea.
The aircraft operator said it would fly offshore workers to and from the BW Athena floating production vessel on the Athena field in the outer Moray Firth.
Bond signed the three-year agreement with BW Offshore, which owns the ship and is overseeing production on behalf of operator Ithaca Energy. The contract will be managed out of Aberdeen and is due to start next month.
Although Bond has taken delivery of 16 Sikorsky S92s recently and has several Eurocopter aircraft in its fleet, the operator said it would use an AgustaWestland AW139 for BW Athena crew changes because deck restrictions made it difficult to use larger helicopters.
The firm said that the new aircraft would be its fifth AW139 in the UK North Sea.
Bond, which employs 250 people in Aberdeen, said the new contract would lead to new pilot and engineer positions in the north-east, but it did not know how many roles would be created.
Richard Mintern, chief executive for northern Europe and Asia-Pacific at Bond owner Avincis Group, said the deal was “the latest in a fantastic recent run of success for Bond”.
The firm recently picked up a £37million contract with oil firm Perenco to provide crew-change flights to its newly acquired southern North Sea platforms.
Mr Mintern added: “As it grows, Bond is also investing in staff and cutting-edge equipment in order to continue providing the optimum level of service to its customers.”
One of Bond’s Eurocopters, a Super Puma EC225, ditched in the North Sea last May around 30 miles off Aberdeen.
The 14 passengers and crew were all uninjured.
Dozens of EC225s are grounded because Eurocopter is still investigating the root cause of a gearbox problem believed to be responsible for the incident and a similar ditching of a CHC Scotia-operated aircraft in October.
The Athena field started production last year. The £180million development is estimated to have probable and possible reserves totalling 44.7million barrels of oil equivalent.