Tyneside firm Duco signs North Sea oil deal
Jul 29 2010 by Adam Jupp, The Journal
A NORTH East company has received a huge boost by winning a multi-million pound contract from the oil and gas industry.
Duco, which employs around 350 people on Tyneside, has won the £11.5m deal to carry out work as part of a North Sea project being run by BP.
The contract covers engineering, project management services and the manufacturing of umbilicals, thermoplastic hoses and electric cables.
All the fabrication will be done at Duco’s plant, on Walker Riverside, in Newcastle’s East End.
Work is set to start this month on the contract, which comes after the company announced profits ahead of expectations, despite a 43% drop in turnover over the last year.
The BP deal relates to its Andrew Field project, which is 143 miles north east of Aberdeen in Scotland and was discovered by the petroleum giant in 1974.
Duco specialises in making umbilicals, which are an assembly of hydraulic hoses used to control subsea structures from a platform or vessel.
It will made a 215-meter static riser umbilical and a 29-kilometer static seabed umbilical.
They will include more than 600km of thermoplastic hoses and more than 160km of electrical cables.
In addition, the riser umbilical includes optical fibre cables.
The project is scheduled for delivery in 2011 and has been described as a “great addition” to the company’s current workload. Duco has a proven track-record of supplying BP with umbilicals, having recently done so for its Skarv development in Norway.
The contract was awarded by the BP Exploration Operating Company Ltd to Technip, the parent company of Duco.
Latest financial results for the firm revealed annual revenues had fallen from £90m to £52m in the year to December 2008, however profits held up at £9m.
A company statement said: “2008 has seen significantly reduced levels of activity.
“It has been very important to deliver strong project performance and to surpass client expectations.
“Key performance indicators in this area remain focused on these goals.”
