Building on repeat revenue and large contract wins, an offshore engineering firm has bucked the downward trend in the oil and gas industry to expand its facilities.

Eastern Daily Press: Brian Kelly, valve and and well services manager at Simmons Edeco in Great Yarmouth. Picture: Simmons Edeco.Brian Kelly, valve and and well services manager at Simmons Edeco in Great Yarmouth. Picture: Simmons Edeco. (Image: Simmons Edeco.)

Oil field services group Simmons Edeco has doubled the size of its Great Yarmouth base and bolstered its team.

Over the last few months EDF Energy, SSE and a major operator in the Southern North Sea have awarded valve and wellhead maintenance service contracts to the company.

Brian Kelly, valve and wellhead services manager for Simmons Edeco Europe, said: 'We are fairly confident in the work load we have, primarily because some of the maintenance and testing work we do has to be done by law. Companies have to test equipment even if they are not using the well any more and it is shut down. It means we have a consistent pipeline of work.'

The company has also opened a new base in Denmark which Norfolk workers will support.

Mr Kelly said the success had come from a 'big push' by him and his team and now the company would be considering further countries to expand in to.

With the oil price remaining below $50 a barrel many firms in the industry continue to struggle.

Mr Kelly said: 'Things were getting more positive about a month ago with the oil price heading towards $60 a barrel but it has dropped a bit since then.

'We have been taking a bit of an advantage from the downturn by offering ourselves as a cheaper alternative and keeping our costs down.'

Simmons Edeco, which reported a turnover of £5.29m in 2016, on the other hand has taken on around 20 new staff at Great Yarmouth over the past 18 months to take the team up to 84.

'We are a services company,' said Mr Kelly. 'It is about giving a good service and cutting costs compared to our competitors.

'As a company we have more than 55 years of experience and we have lots of people who have more than 30 years experience in the industry.'

As well as expanding the maintenance centre an aim of the Norfolk development has been to create a central European base which will combine engineering services, service centre, operations and training functions.

Simmons Edeco has its headquarters in Calgary, Canada, and also has sites in Albania, Mexico and Oman.