FRESH uncertainty surrounds engineering jobs after a company pursuing a rival increased cost-cutting expectations.

Wood Group now believes its £2.2bn takeover of Amec Foster Wheeler, one of Darlington’s largest employers, will yield an extra £40m in savings.

Bosses expect a third of the changes to come from office closures and cuts to duplicate IT systems and support services, adding their figures take into account Amec’s finance and HR operations shifting to Wood Group.

Last night, a Wood Group spokeswoman told The Northern Echo the company couldn’t comment on the likelihood of job cuts, but admitted it will make operational and administrative changes.

Amec’s Darlington site, on Lingfield Point, provides work for hundreds of people and has experience of managing recruitment and support processes, such as payroll work.

However, the Echo is aware of claims that some staff at Amec, which did not comment when approached, have already been released.

According to Wood Group’s revised figures, it expects the acquisition to deliver annual savings of at least £150m by the end of the third year following completion. The number is up on the £110m initially given by bosses.

The spokeswoman said: “We are not able to comment on any potential job cuts at this time as we are still undertaking our assessment of the potential integration, but there will be some operational and administrative restructuring required.

“However, both businesses are people businesses; our workforce are the key to our success.

“The purpose of the deal is to target growth, which in the longer-term is an employment creator.”

Ian Marchant, chairman of Wood Group, which manages operations at the Central Area Transmission System gas terminal, in Seal Sands, near Billingham, added the enlarged organisation will be more nimble across the energy sector.

The plans, which shareholders will vote on later this year, come after the Echo revealed up to 45 Amec posts were at risk of being moved from Darlington to India in a restructure aimed at reducing the business’ £1bn debt pile.

The firm, which also has a base in Newcastle, expanded in 2014 when it took on Foster Wheeler to target greater oil and gas work, but has suffered from the fall in oil prices and associated weakness in the offshore sector.

Those difficulties were emphasised in its latest results, which showed trading profit was down from £374m in 2015 to £318m last year.

However, officials said a number of contracts were still to be absorbed into its financial sheet.