Moorings provider and engineering consultancy Sigma Offshore has made two key appointments.

Sigma Offshore has pulled off a real coup by landing Alistair Dornan as the Aberdeen-based company’s CEO. Mr Dornan was executive chairman of oil and gas consultancy and engineering group Xodus and formerly the director behind the rapid growth of now Technip owned Genesis Oil and Gas Consultants.

He has appointed Neil Galbraith, who has 29 years' experience in the oil and gas industry, as Commercial Director.

Sigma Offshore has evolved their mooring system designs into Smart Mooring Systems (SMS) for floating production operators and contractors worldwide. The full weather-vaning system is fitted to the bow of oil tankers, minimising hull invasion and freeing up tanker space – significantly reducing costs and saving time.

Target markets for SMS are mostly outside Europe and cover South America, Australasia and the Far East.

Alistair Dornan said: "We've taken tremendous steps forward for such a young company in recent months and the arrival of Neil is yet another step in the right direction. He brings considerable experience and integrity to our moorings and consultancy business. We are delighted to have him on board."

Mr Dornan, who brings more then 25 years' industry experience to Sigma, worked for Shell and Genesis where he oversaw its dramatic rise from 6 employees to more than 200. He moved to Xodus in 2005 and was responsible for setting up their business in Perth, Australia in 2007.

Neil started his career in Aberdeen with the British National Oil Corporation in 1979. A specialist in the commercial management of floating production installations, he has worked in Saudi Arabia, Holland, South Africa, America and Australia for a number of key oil and gas companies. He moves to Sigma from an established oil and gas services provider where he was a director.

Neil said: "I wanted to get back into the FPSO business and the chance to work with Alistair also appealed to me. We’ve got a highly-skilled, highly-knowledgeable team and a terrific product."

Mr Dornan has high hopes on the international market for Sigma Offshore's moorings operation, while the specialist engineering consultancy will target the North Sea as well as other key oil and gas producing regions.

He said: "We aim to build sales up year-on-year. Our market research, which includes recent publications by Douglas-Westwood on the state of the floating production market, shows there is a very real demand for our system. SMS has been designed so it can be fabricated just about anywhere in the world and this makes it a very flexible product. There are exciting times ahead for Sigma Offshore."

Sigma Offshore secured £3.55million funding from investment firm Energy Ventures in April this year. Aberdeen-based Greg Herrera, a partner in Energy Ventures, said: "We are delighted with the progress made by Sigma in such a short space of time. We are looking forward to helping them expand the business not only here in the UK but worldwide."

Tags: Sigma Offshore