ENGINEERING services firm Amec announced last night that it had won a multi-million pound maintenance contract.

The Darlington-based company will be responsible for a £13m project working on overhead electricity lines in the South-West. Over the next two years, Amec will replace insulators, fittings and conductor spares on about 145km of the national grid.

The company said that the work, to be carried out for National Grid Transco, reinforced its position as "a leading specialist in high voltage overhead line activity".

Managing director of Amec's industrial division, Steve Lee, said: "This contract continues our long relationship with National Transco in delivering energy supplies across the UK.

"The electricity transmission market is expanding rapidly and is a strategic growth area for Amec."

The company works across the public and private sectors in a range of fields, including transport, oil, gas and power, as well as generally across industry and commerce.

Amec has operations in Darlington, Wallsend on Tyneside and Hexham, in Northumberland, employing nearly 400 people in the region.

Last September, bosses said the firm had gone into the red, posting losses of £5.1m, compared with profits of £27m at the same time in 2003.

However, it stepped up overseas operations, winning a contract to restore damaged power generation, transmission and distribution systems in Iraq.

Several Darlington workers were part of the effort to restore the country's energy infrastructure.