The city of Aberdeen was further confirmed as the energy capital of Scotland this week when a Norwegian firm moved to town.

Subsea construction and engineering firm Ocean Installer selected the city for its new UK division.

Its move to the Innovation Centre in Aberdeen Energy Park will create up to 100 new energy jobs.

It is the young company's second office after its Stavanger, Norway headquarters and the move comes just a year and a half after Ocean Installer was established.

As the company will occupy all 10,400 sq ft of the Innovation Centre, it is due to be renamed as Ocean Installer House.


Martin Myhill Sisley of the company said: "We are delighted to have secured this office building, firstly because it will accommodate our current and future colleagues for the growth we anticipate wholly within a building which Ocean Installer controls. Secondly because it really does make a statement that Ocean Installer is committed to Aberdeen and indeed the UK oil and gas sector."

The Aberdeen Energy Park has reached its highest occupancy level in four years with this move, and the only properties still showing as vacant on its website are two units of the nearby Enterprise centre.

Allan McQuade of Scottish Enterprise, a venture partner in the Energy Park, said Aberdeen now has a "high quality environment to foster future innovation and technological advances in the energy industry".

He said he was looking forward to seeing the Norwegian company "flourish".

(NE)