New appointment to assist Sparrows in boosting North Sea drilling services offering

Human Capital

February 28, 2023, by Melisa Cavcic

Engineering and maintenance services specialist Sparrows Group has appointed a drilling services manager for Europe, as it looks to reinvigorate its North Sea offering with drilling services capabilities.

Following Insider’s news about more than a third of Scottish adults wanting to extend oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, Sparrows disclosed on Monday, 27 February 2023, that it was expanding its service roster in the North Sea, in a bid to replicate its drilling services success in the Middle East and Asia.

To support its remarket entry, the company has appointed Sandy Main, who brings more than 30 years of experience in the drilling services sector, as Drilling Services Manager – Europe. Main will be based at the company’s headquarters in Aberdeen, Scotland. In his new role, Main will be responsible for the operations and technical resources of the service in the region, ensuring Sparrows can deliver large-scale projects to operators across the North Sea.

Sandy Main, Drilling Services Manager – Europe, explained: “With a career in drilling services spanning several decades, I am well versed in the industry and have worked on complex projects of all sizes. I’m eager to enhance this service offering in the UK and Europe and am determined to deliver projects to a high level for new and existing clients.

“With Sparrows’ skilled workforce spanning the globe, along with the most equipped workshops I have seen, we are in a strong and supported place to help customers streamline their projects and benefit from the quality services offered by Sparrows. 2023 is set to be an energised year!”

According to Sparrows, it has seen increasing interest in the improved service offering since introducing drilling services to its repertoire in the Middle East and Asia Pacific, going from strength to strength in this department, evolving its product line into a core service. While its strategic focus in the UK had shifted in recent years, the company claims that it has identified “a growing need” in the market to offer customers “a larger, more encompassing offering.”

The firm works with customers on large-scale, full rig reactivation projects, delivering entire scopes of complex work that envelop equipment to facilities to support the workforce. Furthermore, Sparrows’ ability to diversify from a crane, lifting support and engineering company into a turnkey energy support company has been achieved through its detailed market observation.

The firm seeks to fill gaps in the market to help meet operator demand for high-quality services, offering clients a more streamlined, efficient approach to delivering projects under a single supplier. Whilst Sparrows’ drilling services had previously been available in the UK and Europe, the company has seen increased activity and demand in this region for a bundled service, thus, it is entering 2023 with a renewed focus on this offering.

Stewart Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer at Sparrows, remarked: “This is an exciting time for the entire Sparrows team, and we are ready and prepped to build upon our success in the East and transplant the same model in the UK and Europe. Through Sparrows’ in-house training and development programmes we are upskilling our current workforce and utilising our pool of talent who already present the high-quality technical skills needed to deliver this service.

“By also adding a dual role aspect, we can give people the opportunity to work on a much wider range of equipment – and in turn, offer our customers a more streamlined service. This not only supports their career progression but also allows us to offer new avenues to Sparrows’ apprentices, as we continue our upward growth trajectory.”

Regarding Sparrows’ activities elsewhere, it is worth noting that the firm secured a two-year contract in November 2022 to provide crane maintenance services onboard Tullow Oil’s FPSO Kwame Nkrumah (KNK) in Ghana.