More North Sea woe as Petrofac announces 160 jobs to go

The company said it was integrating its services into a single business to ensure it remained “competitive and sustainable against a challenging industry backdrop”.

A consultation with the workforce is expected to end later this month but the firm has not said where the bulk of the affected jobs are located.

A Petrofac spokesperson said: “We’re constantly looking for ways to make our business as cost efficient and delivery-focused as possible.

“Integration of our UK services will deliver a streamlined and effective business which is designed to ensure we remain competitive and sustainable against a challenging industry backdrop.

“We’re making every effort to minimise the impact on our 1,900 UK employees.

“Under our current proposals the positions potentially at risk represent less than 10 per cent of our entire UK population and will be spread across our operating centres.”

Petrofac said in October it would be consulting over jobs as a result of shift pattern change on North Sea BP assets.

It has also suffered losses totalling more than £330 million on a contract to build a gas terminal on Shetland, where the company says it has been plagued by low productivity and bad weather.

The terminal will process gas from Totals’s giant Laggan Tormore field off Shetland, and is one of the biggest field developments in UK waters in recent years.

While Petrofac was delighted to win the £510m contract to build the terminal in 2010, the company has seen the timetable for completion of the project slip and costs spiral.

In April Petrofac’s chief executive Ayman Asfari said the Jersey-incorporated company had paid dearly for its lack of experience of running such a project in a wholly new geography.

He said labour costs incurred on the project were much higher and productivity much lower than the company was used to. Petrofac had 2,000 people working on the terminal at peak times, including contractors.

A Petrofac spokesman said: “Under our current proposals the positions potentially at risk represent less than 10 per cent of our entire UK population and will be spread across our operating centres.”

At least 65,000 industry workers, including 5,500 in Aberdeenshire, have lost their jobs over the past year.