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This history page is under development and is presently woefully incomplete. All information is believed to be correct but if you spot any errors, please let us know. It is hoped to give a detailed history of each division eventually. Specifically required is any information on the Company prior to the move to Altens and memorable events for each division and overseas operations. If you would like to submit information for inclusion, please go back to the previous page, use the CONTACT US button and fill in the message part of the form provided. All contributions will be acknowledged
Oilfab Group Limited was first registered in 1974
After small beginnings in the city, a new Main office was constructed in Altens, Aberdeen in 1980
The building was designed to form three sides of a quadrangle but phase 1 consisted one one side only.
Expansion of phase 1 included the addition of workshop space, additional offices and Test labs. By now the UK part of the company consisted of three divisions, Engineering Services, Project Services and Technical Services, together with offices in London; the Hague, Holland; Halifax, Nova Scotia and Singapore. Engineering Services expanded at home with a new computer services section.
The next major expansion included and extended phase 2 of the original plans together with further extension of the Technical Services test labs and workshop. Phase 3 was never completed.
At this stage the company offered a wide range of services as advertised below:
In 1986, John Laing took a 60% stake in the Company. At the same time, OGL absorbed Scott Projects, recently acquired by Laing, into an expanded and CAD section in the Engineering division. The Agency was eventually demerged from the Project Services Division into a separate division of its own. Technical Services was eventually renamed as Materials Engineering and ran its own successful computer department writing technical software for sale, such as Millcheck and Profile. The Altens site was bursting at the seams and parts of the Engineering division moved out to other accommodation in the city centre.
In January 1994, all but the Engineering division was bought out by RTD bv, a wholly owned, Dutch subsidiary of Lloyds Register. The Altens site was taken over by RTD who moved in along with Materials Engineering, Project Services and the Agency. The Engineering division was obliged to move out to premises nearer the city centre, later to become Laing Oil & Gas. This was eventually sold off to AMEC.
The Materials Engineering Division was taken over in 1997 by M.T.T., a new group consisting of all of the laboratory sites previously owned 50:50 by RTD bv and Stork, a European engineering consortium. The new group was run from the Netherlands with the Materials Engineering division now becoming Materials Engineering Limited, still based in the Altens premises, albeit in a somewhat contracted space.
Project Services were finally integrated into LR Integrity which formed on the merger of RTD(UK) Ltd and LRIM in Aberdeen.
Chris Amon took on the job of setting up laboratory facilities of the Technical Services Division at Oilfab in 1979 and intially was based in the offices at Rubislaw with very basic equipment. The move to Altens provided a substantial expansion of the test facility and equipment. Within months of the move in 1980 the laboratory was getting more weld procedure test plates than can be imagined nowadays, a few dozen a week. Mechanical Testing staff, Ken Macaskill and Alan Young were heavily involved in this work. Quite often there were 70 mm thick and Tee Butt welds where one cut on the old Bandsaw took so long that a large saw, still in operation today, had to be bought. There was an open day to find 'the best welder in Aberdeen' and a chap called John Monday won this by a mile, the visual appearance of his welds was better than a machine weld.
A new Polyvac spectrometer was purchased for chemical analysis and the efforts of the sales people, Andy Worrall and others, helped to keep this and other facilities busy.
Metallurgical investigation work also flooded in and a team was built up rapidly to cope with all this work including Ken Farrow, Dave Shipley, Ian Nicol, Barry Fletcher, Alec Lang and Terry Nicholls. They were performing metallurgical investigations for virtually all the Oil Operators, Diving, Drilling and Pipe Lay Contractors. Life was exiting in these early days and when a need was established for a particular type of testing the directors were foresighted enough to support any worthwhile development. Examples of this were purchase of the large Bandsaw, which transformed the time to cut specimens from the thickest plates, a hydrogen analyser, which was used for the hyperbaric welding industry and most significantly the servo hydraulic machines. This represented a major investment ( in excess of £100,000 in 1982) which enabled Oilfab to perform CTOD testing (the first CTOD commercial test lab in Scotland) and paid for itself in the first few years.
NDT and Heat treatment services were also offered but these eventually were abandoned due to the extreme local competition for a diminishing amount of work.
Awaiting further detailed contributions
Awaiting detailed contributions
Awaiting detailed contributions
Scot-Projects was a small company based at 129 Wellington Road which conducted engineering, CAD draughting and a unique niche function of candle-plate refurbishment for Shell Expro. It was bought over by Laings in 1985 and was merged into OGL during 1987 with the draughting section coming under the control of the Engineering Division and the candle plate side coming under the control of Materials Engineering.
The staff lost considerable benefits at amalgamation, 5 days holidays / longer hours 7.5 to 8 hrs per day and the loss of premium rates for overtime. Although the name Scot Projects disappeared, some of the CAD section, under Gordon Murray, were still on the Laing payroll until 1996 when it was taken over by AMEC together with the rest of the residual Engineering division.
Awaiting detailed contributions
