INTERNATIONAL oilfield service company Expro opened a new Aberdeen training site yesterday, which will be used by its own staff plus those of customers.
The group is creating a worldwide network of centres of excellence at its main bases, with the Granite City as the flagship.
Others are located in the US, Egypt, South Africa, Malaysia and Brazil.
The Aberdeen centre was opened by Lord Cullen, who led the public inquiry into the Piper Alpha disaster. Since then, he has focused on the critical importance training and competence play in ensuring oilfield safety.
Lord Cullen said: “The training of employees in processes and procedures, along with instilling in them an enduring culture of safety, no doubt calls for considerable technical and professional expertise. Expro has shown itself more than equal to the task, as its track record and recent awards have shown.
“I congratulate it on the creation of its Aberdeen centre of excellence as a means of seeing that the highest standards are achieved.”
Expro chief operating officer Gavin Prise said: “Opening this network of centres of excellence sends a clear message to the oil and gas sector that we are committed to developing the finest talent in the industry.
“Excellence in operations ensures our focus is always on delivering the highest standards of safety, service quality and customer care to our customers worldwide, and these values are instilled in everyone benefiting from learning and development in Expro.
“Our investment in these centres and our employees going through structured learning and development programmes will ensure that Expro remains at the forefront of personal development, and our ability to offer third-party training in these facilities helps underline our position as the brand leader in our field.”
The Aberdeen centre is being used for all aspects of learning and development, including health, safety and environment training, plus technical training in well test, subsea, data acquisition and operations engineering.
Chief executive Samir Brikho said each of Amec’s core divisions was progressing well and end markets in the energy, power and process-industry sectors remained strong.
He said: “Overall, the outlook for 2008 is slightly better than our previous expectations and we confidently expect to deliver the targeted 6% margin.”
