ABERDEEN-BASED Wood Group has moved to quash speculation that the announcement of 70 more jobs to be axed from its Dundee plants could be the beginning of a company plan to move operations out of the city.

“We absolutely refute these claims,” a company spokesman said yesterday.

The energy services company confirmed the redundancies from its two divisions at Baldovie industrial estate in Dundee last Thursday.

The news was the third jobs cutback in the Dundee workforce in the last 18 months, a move which heightened fears that the company might winding down production in the city with a view to closure.

However, despite the company saying on Friday that it was unable to offer assurances over its future activities in the city, a spokeswoman yesterday emphasised that the latest redundancies were necessary to streamline the business and pledged the future of the group in Dundee

“We have taken this action to rationalise our operations to strengthen our businesses for the long-term future, maximising our management’s and our employees’ skills,” the spokeswoman said.

She also confirmed that a consultation process was now under way and there had been no decision made on which positions would be lost.

“It is regrettable, but we absolutely refute these claims that we are winding down our business in Dundee. We are not. It is purely to rationalise the business.”

It is believed that about 30 jobs will go from the Wood Group Heavy Industrial Turbines (WGHIT) unit, which is involved in the servicing and repair of turbines used in the offshore oil and gas industry, and the remainder from the Wood Group Accessories and Components (WGAC) plant, which carries out the repair and overhaul of aero engines.

Wood Group has been a major engineering employer in the city for a number of years but the workforce has gradually decreased over the last two years.

As recently as two years ago the group employed almost 400 locally. The total is now approximately 300.