Well engineering management company, REC Consultancy Services (REC), has set up its HQ in Aberdeen, replacing the distributed home office approach used by its founder/directors until now.
The firm was founded by industry engineering veterans Dave Mackay and Richard Clarke in 2008; initially as a tentative adventure while in Houston until their return to the UK, since when the former has been based out of Banchory.
The reason for concentrating the business into a proper headquarters is the firm’s rapid pace of growth, turnover having recently hit £10million a year.
Mackay told energy that he expects the rapid pace of growth to continue and that the company had just secured further valuable business with Noble Energy.
Having supported the US company during its first drilling campaign offshore the Falkland Islands, REC has been asked back to assist with the next one.
At the moment, REC is involved with the planning stages, though the work may extend to supporting offshore operations.
Noble is expected to mount its second exploratory drilling campaign in 2015, though it is possible that this could start in Q4 next year to take full advantage of the austral summer.
REC is cashing in on robust and growing global demand for drilling talent and engineering construction and management expertise. With few domestic exceptions such as work in Liverpool Bay, all work to date has been overseas in emerging oil and gas provinces.
However, Mackay also has an eye on North Sea opportunities and taking a Queen’s Road address in Europe’s Energy Capital may assist that ambition.
He told Energy that this overwhelming balance in favour of overseas is simply how the opportunities panned out.
“We’ve grown the business from scratch without any marketing effort or real presence in the UK market.
“We’ve decided that there is a good opportunity for us in the UK market, which is a major reason why we’ve taken the plunge and opened in Aberdeen.”
REC currently works with a pool of 35-40 active consultants but Mackay thinks the company can grow that base from what he regards as a stable business.
Both Mackay and Clarke claim significant track records in the drilling sector, in particular well engineering, completions and project management.
“I think we both started in 1981-82 and continue to work actively as consultants. In addition to running the business we’re still very hands-on with clients and are very keen to remain so.
“Turning to current contracts, core clients include BHP (worldwide), we’ve just got Noble Energy, we’ve been doing a lot of work for Falklands Oil & Gas; then there’s Afren, Tullow, HKN and others.
“The new Noble contract is an open-ended master service agreement that relates to the Falklands, initially the planning phase work here in the UK includes providing advice and direct interface with the various agencies. Then we would hope to support logistics for the next campaign, and engineering planning with the service companies.
“This work has been Aberdeen-based and we hope that this continues.”
Recommended for you
