Oil price rise brings industry boom

By Hayley Millar
Business correspondent, BBC Scotland

As the high oil price makes many of us think twice before we pop to the shops by car, it also makes every barrel of North Sea oil more valuable.

In Aberdeen, the oil capital of Europe, the oil price is bringing boom times for the oil industry.

Triton Group's underwater machines look like something from outer space

Standing at Aberdeen beach, looking out to the North Sea, a handful of ships are waiting to enter harbour.

These are supply ships which transport all sorts of goods to more than 280 oil platforms in the North Sea. Along with international cargo ships, they come and go from Aberdeen Harbour every day.

This is the busiest harbour in Britain and its chief executive Colin Parker told me that this was because of oil.

He said: "We had connections with 35 different countries last year, as far a field as Argentina, Brazil, Australia and China. The oil industry is a global player and there are a lot of decision makers in Aberdeen and a lot of servicing excellence here."

Oil services are now driving the harbour's growth, which contributes £400m to the city's economy every year.

The rush to discover and produce more oil off the shore of Aberdeen is having a huge impact onshore. Oil supply companies are responding to the rush with rapid advances in oil related technology.

'Pushing boundaries'

There are now 3,000 oil and gas services companies in Aberdeen, some of them delivering the best and smartest technology in the global oil industry.

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See the underwater robot in action

Companies like Triton Group are making the sort of machines you would normally associate with the space industry. Their remotely operated vehicles or ROVs are used to inspect and repair the huge underwater pipelines.

Martin Anderson, its chief executive officer, said these machines complement the work traditionally done by deep sea divers.

"Divers can operate in depths of up to about 200m. So when you have oil field development and other seabed work in deeper depths, you can't take a human being," he said.

"Most oil and gas work is in the region of 2,000m at the moment, but exploration work is continually pushing the boundaries beyond those depths."

Aberdeen is fast becoming a centre of excellence in sub sea work. One of the industry's leading sub sea engineering companies, Technip, now employs 700 people at its Aberdeen base.

Mature area

Rob Fisher, engineering manager, believes this will be the next big thing for the North Sea.

He said: "I think the next technological evolution for the whole offshore market will be sub sea processing. So instead of having to process the oil and gas up on an oil platform like now, you'll be able to do that underwater. "

Mr Fisher believes this technology will be particularly useful in the frontier regions west of Shetland and into the deep waters of the North Atlantic, where new discoveries are being made.

"Sub sea processing will be a big thing for the North Sea. It's a mature area, but it's a place where we can deploy new technologies to keep production going. Particularly with the high oil price that we've got at the moment, that's an incentive to do so," he added.

BBC Scotland's journalists are focusing on the high price of oil, and what this means for the industry in the North Sea, this week.

Coverage begins on Tuesday evening on Reporting Scotland, and includes a special hour-long documentary - Truth, Lies, Scotland and Oil - at 2240 BST on Wednesday on BBC One Scotland.