AN offshore engineering company that employs 120 staff in the North-East has won two contracts worth more than £8m.

DeepOcean has won a deal for an undisclosed sum to repair equipment in Brazil’s oilfields, along with an £8m bid to remove and recycle a North Sea platform.

The multi-national company, which was formerly known at its Darlington and Teesport sites as CTC Marine, will repair deep water flexible risers off the Brazilian coast using one of their remoteoperated vehicles (ROVs) controlled from a vessel on the surface.

The ROV will bring flexibles in need of repair to the surface vessel where a team from a specialist riser manufacturer will come aboard to carry out the work.

DeepOcean is now bidding to provide further vessels for projects in the Brazil oilfields.

The £8m contract to decommission a B-11 riser platform for Statoil is with AF Group.

The contract is an option in the existing contract DeepOcean was awarded last year by AF Group for similar work at the H-7 platform, which has now been made public.

Part of a pipeline system that transports gas to Europe, the platform is located on the German continental shelf of the North Sea.

The work includes planning, engineering and delivering the underwater work to remove the jacket substructure as well as inspections and seabed intervention work.

The company will use its own vessels as well as ROVs and cutting equipment. The work will start immediately and is expected to be completed by the end of 2016.

Mads Bardsen, DeepOcean president, said: “This is the third significant award of a decommissioning contract to DeepOcean in the past 12 months following the award of the Statfjord SFC loading buoy EPRD contract by Statoil and the H-7 contract with AF Group.

“I’m pleased to learn that our customers appreciate the skills and capabilities of DeepOcean in the decommissioning segment. Also, I’m looking forward to yet again cooperate with the AF Group on a challenging project where the joint capabilities of the two companies are brought together.”