Statoil Set for Prime Four.

Several hundred new jobs at Mariner field operations centre.

Norwegian multinational oil and gas company Statoil is the latest leading energy company to commit to establishing a new UK North Sea head office at the Prime Four business park in Aberdeen. Several hundred new onshore jobs will be created at the new facility.

Statoil and the park’s developers, Drum Property Group, are in the process of finalising terms for a 45,000 square foot facility, with potential to expand to 90,000 square feet, and construction will begin in November of this year subject to planning consents. Completion is expected in the first quarter of 2016 and a detailed planningapplication on behalf of Statoil will be submitted shortly to Aberdeen CityCouncil.

The new Statoil office will be the operations centre for the development of the Mariner field. Mariner is the largest new offshore development in the UK in more than a decade. Statoil expects to start production from Mariner in 2017 and will be investing more than $7billion in the project over the 30 year life of the field.

“This solution will give us modern and functional facilities for safe and efficient operations of the Mariner field,” said Gunnar Breivik, vice president for Statoil’s Western Europe business unit and head of the company’s Aberdeen office.

"We are in the middle of a significant recruitment effort for our Aberdeen operations centre as well as for offshore positions on the Mariner field. We are confident that the office solution at Prime Four business park in Kingswells will be an attractive workplace for current and future employees, providing us with valuable flexibility for long term growth and expansion in Aberdeen. We are looking forward to working together with Drum to realise this project and growing our presence here,” said Breivik.

Statoil will join De Vere Hotels, major operator Premier Oil and OneSubsea (jointly owned by Cameron and Schlumberger) in Prime Four’s second phase. Also included in phase 2 is the Fourcourt plaza, designed to be the park’s social hub. Development of the plaza will see a wide range of additional amenities and services, including the provision of pre-school childcare at Kingswellies Nursery, introduced to the park.Construction of phase 1 was concluded earlier this year and saw other industry majors Nexen, Apache and Transocean move on to the park.

The total number of jobs based at the Park when the Statoil complex becomes operational will be over 2,000.

“As a world class company Statoil were clearly a very attractive prospect for the park. Having considered a number of sites in the City and Shire for their new operation, we are delighted that they have settled on Prime Four and their arrival further cements the park’s growing reputation as a world-class working environment for the energy industry,” commented Drum Managing Director Graeme Bone.

“With the mix of tenants we now have it is no exaggeration to say that Prime Four is rapidly becoming one of the world’s major energy hubs.“We are in active discussions with a number of other occupiers and will be in a position to announce these in the near future. The critical mass we now have for Prime Four supports the view that it will play a major role in generating economic activity for the north east of Scotland for many years to come.”

All News