John Swinney Officially Opens New PSS Wick Facility Set To Create 40 Jobs

19th July 2014

Aberdeen-based Process Safety Solutions, the systems life-cycle management specialist supporting the oil and gas sector in the UK and overseas, officially opened its new Wick facility on 15th July 2014 at Wick Business Park in Caithness. The team welcomed John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth.

The new base, which currently employs five staff, will look to further employ 5 people within 6 months and look to increase to a team of 30 - 40 staff within two years.

Doug Mackay, operations director of PSS (Process Safety Solutions), said, "Wick was always on the radar in terms of another base for PSS. There is a large pool of local resources, which we are aiming to capture and retrain and make it a viable option for employment to the local workforce. As a location, it is the ideal to support the West of Shetland developments within the oil and gas sector."

David Green, PSS founder, said, "We have had great support and have worked closely with the team from Highlands and Islands Enterprise as we saw great potential in utilising the wide skills base in the area. More and more companies in Aberdeen are out sourcing engineering work, until now this has been largely to India and England."

We would like to reverse this trend and fully realise the potential within Scotland's engineering community. Access to the local skill base developed over the last 50 years at Dounreay was one of the main drivers to the new office location. When you couple that with the fact that I am originally from Wick so know the area and people very well, the reasons are quite compelling."

Mr Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, said "The new partnership with Siemens and UHI will develop this skills base even further, creating opportunities for advanced apprenticeships in engineering and technologies. This builds on the company's successful graduate programme and I am sure it will be a great asset as PSS looks to diversify. Commitments like this clearly demonstrate that Scotland is investing in our engineering sector to not only benefit our economy and home grown talent but to secure our place as skilled operators in global industries."

Chris McComb, of Siemens - a solutions partner for PSS, said, "Siemens is fully behind the new Wick office and we have agreed to support a local apprenticeship program that we will put in place.”

David concludes, “We will also be working closely with the UHI and with their help will train the next generation of engineers. This office opening is really a joint effort between many parties who are looking to rejuvenate an area that has been marking time during the progressive closure of the Dounreay nuclear facility. Work to decommission the facility and demolish almost 200 buildings is to be completed by 2025.”

The location will also enable us to diversify into the renewables market for wave, tidal and wind energy. Located just off the east coast of Caithness, the development of the Smith Bank and Beatrice offshore renewable wind energy sites presents opportunities for investment to support this emerging industry. A new PSS office in the North of Scotland would be well placed to provide engineering services and long term maintenance and support for all renewables projects in the North.”