Costain buys Scottish oil and gas company

Costain has acquired an Aberdeen based oil and gas company for £3.2m.

It has bought 75% of the shares of ClerkMaxwell, an engineering and support services firm for upstream oil and gas.

The contractor has the option to buy out the remaining 25% during May.

ClerkMaxwell has 50 staff, which will be integrated into Costain’s energy and process division.

Costain said the acquisition allows gives it a “full hydrocarbons value chain” including processing upstream oil and gas, LNG, gas storage, and downstream oil and gas.

Andrew Wyllie, chief executive of Costain, said: “We are delighted to have acquired ClerkMaxwell. It is absolutely in-line with our strategy of broadening our existing front-end consultancy, project delivery and operations and maintenance offering through a combination of organic development and acquisitions. ClerkMaxwell is a fast growing business and will add complementary capabilities to our existing operations in the oil and gas sector, enhancing the full-service offering we can provide to our blue-chip customers.” 

John Wilson, managing director of ClerkMaxwell, said: “Costain is the perfect home for ClerkMaxwell. We will bring additional skills and reach to an already strong oil and gas capability and Costain’s established customer base will provide a major opportunity for us to realise our ambition of becoming a market-leading provider of value adding, front end engineering services.”