Successful North Sea Oil Industry Results in Creation of 100 Engineering Jobs

Despite difficult economic conditions, the North Sea oil industry continues to thrive. This was underlined recently by news from corporate financier Simmons & Company that its Aberdeen office has conducted $11 billion (£6.9bn) of deals.

And, oil services company Production Services Network has also announced that it is hiring 100 more staff.

Billions of pounds worth of North Sea deals

Simmons & Co, which has been in Aberdeen since 1999, was involved in deals such as the £11 million acquisition of Norson Power by mechanical engineer EnerMech and a £5.5 million fundraising by oil services firm Flexlife.

Colin Walsh, chief executive of Simmons & Company International, said: “I never would have imagined when we started that we would work on $11bn of deals in as many years.

“Looking ahead it’s inevitable that crude prices will continue to creep up as long as we don’t get hit with another recession and that will be good for businesses locally as well as internationally.”

100 new engineering jobs to be created

Oil services company Production Services Network (PSN), which agreed last year to be purchased by fellow Aberdeen company Wood Group for £633 million, confirmed why it had attracted such attention by revealing that it is to hire another 100 technical and project management staff to accommodate its growth. These engineering jobs will be created in the next month.

Richard Bryce, global resourcing manager for PSN, said: “As the economy and our industry recover, we are seeing a rapid acceleration in activity and there is now a big focus on the delivery of projects, which means we need more people. Scotland has an outstanding engineering skills base and we want to attract people from across the country.”