Wood Group continues investment in arctic technology development

HOUSTON, Nov. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Wood Group has renewed its sponsorship of the Wood Group Chair of Arctic and Harsh Environment Engineering at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) for a second five-year term, from 2014 to 2019.

The research chair in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science will benefit both undergraduate and post-graduate engineering students.  With the Arctic and cold regions a strategically important and challenging area of future industry development, Wood Group's objective is to develop enabling technology and environmentally robust solutions for offshore oil & gas developments in these regions.  Wood Group is investing C$500,000 to sponsor the chair over the next five-year period.  Over the past five years, Wood Group's similar investment has been leveraged by government and other funding agencies to enable additional research to be performed through the Chair program.

"We are very pleased to extend Wood Group's investment in Arctic and harsh environment engineering technology, and to continue to support research delivered from Newfoundland and Labrador," said Mike Straughen, Group director of HSSE and executive sponsor of the programme. "Several of our business units - Wood Group Kenny, Wood Group Mustang and Wood Group PSN - are firmly committed to extreme environment technology development in key areas such as subsea and pipeline engineering, ice mechanics and arctic structures.  The new chair at MUN will continue the excellent work of Dr. Shawn Kenny, the outgoing chair, to support our partnership with the community there." 

"I thank the Wood Group for their continued contribution to Memorial's research capacity," said Dr. Gary Kachanoski, president and vice-chancellor of Memorial University. "We are particularly well-positioned to conduct leading-edge research in ocean and harsh environment engineering, and the renewal of this funding is a clear endorsement that the work being done at this institution is world class, particularly in oil and gas exploration and production in Arctic and harsh environments."

The selection process for the chair is underway and the successful candidate will be appointed in 2014. 

Notes to Editors

Wood Group is an international energy services company with around $7bn sales, employing about 43,000 people worldwide and operating in 50 countries. The Group has three businesses – Wood Group Engineering, Wood Group PSN and Wood Group GTS - providing a range of engineering, production support, maintenance management and industrial gas turbine overhaul and repair services to the oil & gas, and power generation industries worldwide.  www.woodgroup.com

Wood Group Kenny is the world's largest independent specialist subsea, pipeline and riser engineering and management contractor, employing approximately 2,500 people worldwide. www.woodgroupkenny.com

Wood Group Mustang is a global project management, engineering, procurement, and construction operations company serving the upstream oil & gas, oil sands, refining and chemicals, pipeline, automation and control, and industrial markets.  It has offices in North America, South America, Europe, Middle East, Asia & Africa.  For more information, visit www.mustangeng.com.

Wood Group PSN is a global provider of pre-operations, hook up & commissioning, operations & maintenance, engineering, construction, project management, training and decommissioning services to the energy industry. Employing over 29,000 people in more than 40 countries, Wood Group PSN offers high integrity, brownfield services that support customers to optimise performance, maintain production, reduce operating costs and provide integrity assurance. www.woodgroup-psn.com.

About Memorial University
Founded in 1925 as a memorial to Newfoundland's war dead, Memorial University College was elevated to degree-granting status in 1949 as Memorial University of Newfoundland. With about 19,000 students, today Memorial provides excellent undergraduate, graduate and professional programs across a wide range of disciplines. With locations in St. John's and Corner Brook in Newfoundland, Happy Valley-Goose Bay in Labrador, and Harlow in England, Memorial is committed to experiential learning.

Outstanding research and scholarship, extraordinary teaching and learning, and a focus on public engagement are the university's hallmarks. Many teaching and research activities reflect our mid-North Atlantic locations; these unique settings and our cultural heritage have led to the creation of highly-regarded academic programs and specialized facilities in areas such as business, music, linguistics, folklore and human genetics, as well as earth sciences, cold-ocean engineering, rural health care and archaeology. For more information about Memorial University of Newfoundland, please visit www.mun.ca.

SOURCE Wood Group