International health and safety consultant Cresent said yesterday it had signed a multimillion-pound deal to supply training services to BP in Iraq.
The north-east firm described the contract for the Rumaila oil field as the most significant in its 30-year history.
The exact value of the deal has not been disclosed, but it is believed to be worth around £4million.
Under the agreement Cresent – which employs about 30 people at its Westhill headquarters – will provide consultancy and project-management services and has translated its health and safety training into Arabic and Mandarin for the thousands of workers on the site.
About 750 Iraqis will also travel to Scotland over nine months to be trained in Cresent’s WorkSafe control-of-work system and see at first hand how a UK installation operates.
Cresent managing director Tracie Watson said: “We are incredibly proud of this achievement, as this contract is not focused solely on one of our products.
“We are delivering a contract that involves every single part of the Cresent service offering.
“Cresent has been operationally present in the Middle East for a number of years – sales of our products have been particularly strong in this region – but this is the first time that we have worked in Iraq.
“Rumaila is 20 miles from the Kuwaiti border and is vast. It takes over two hours to drive from one side of the field to the other. It accounts for an estimated 40% of Iraq’s total output and the number of personnel operating in the oil field, degassing stations and water-pumping stations is immense.
“Our products have never previously been used on this scale.”
Cresent also has an office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Rumaila is one of the world’s largest oil fields and BP has said it aims to take daily production to 2.85million barrels within six years, spending at least £9billion in the process.