Chevron leaving Wick
CHEVRON UK is leaving the area and returning to Aberdeen as its contract with Wick John O’Groats Airport is finally up.
The company had been using the airport as a staging post for its Alba and Captain oil fields after a link was forged a year ago following the grounding of the Eurocopter EC225 Super Puma fleet because of safety fears.
The contract runs out today and Chevron has decided to return to working the way it did before from Aberdeen and going back to using Bristow, an offshore helicopter transport services company.
The Chevron base in the area had been using not Super Pumas, but the smaller Eurocopter EC155 helicopters that carry 10 passengers and two crew. These were seen to be a safer option in the time of crisis when a number of Super Puma helicopters were involved in incidents last year and the helicopter crash off Shetland happened in August of this year.
Businessman Andy Bruce, who owns Far North Aviation, is staying positive because although the move is a loss for now, he can still see Wick being picked by oil companies over Aberdeen in the future.
"It’s all worked because when Chevron came here they got a completely dedicated facility," he said. "If they’d gone anywhere else they wouldn’t have got that attention.
"It’s gone very well as not only did they fire people out to the Captain field, but there have been other instances where Aberdeen was having little problems or emergencies and they needed to get people out to the rigs quickly. Wick is perfect for that, where Aberdeen struggles, and it has literally transformed the airport."
Mr Bruce said Aberdeen and Sumburgh do enough to get oil personnel out to their work, but when there is a problem in one or both of these facilities, they cannot cope.
Helicopters from the Beatrice oil rig, which is only 12 minutes from Wick, also often come to the airport to sit out the strong winds and not waste fuel.
Helicopter firm leaving north to return to Aberdeen | John O'Groat Journal | News