Oil services deal secures 500 jobs at Wood Group PSN

Five hundred jobs have been secured after the oil services company Wood Group PSN won a contract extension for Shell's North Sea assets.

The contract is the third between the two companies this year and comes with the option of a one-year extension.

Wood Group PSN will provide maintenance and construction on eight platforms, and engineering modifications on three.

Yesterday Aberdeen-based parent firm Wood Group announced it is to consult on up to 300 redundancies.

The company is starting a consultation process with 1,000 of its onshore employees around the UK.

Wood Group said it was in response to "continuing cost and efficiency challenges affecting the oil and gas sector".

David Kemp, Wood Group's chief financial officer, said: "We are streamlining our structure and our processes to reduce costs."

Wood Group employs about 6,200 people onshore in the UK.

The company announced last week it had won a new $500m (£342.5m) contract to provide services for BP-operated offshore projects in Azerbaijan.