High oil prices are helping to fuel increased demand for helicopters to service offshore oil and gas fields in Europe and the Middle East. Statoil, the largest petroleum company on the Norwegian continental shelf, will use two EC225s to be delivered in mid-2009 for all-weather search and rescue (SAR) missions.

"They will be the first EC225s in SAR configuration to be delivered to a petroleum company in Europe," says Statoil. "One of these two EC225s will be based on the Statfjord B installation in the North Sea, where it will be used for SAR missions and for inter-rig shuttle. The second, based in Bergen, will be used both for regular passenger transport and as a back up SAR helicopter, taking advantage of the aircraft's quick-change capability to switch from one configuration to the other in only 10 minutes. This is a valuable asset for any petroleum company needing to assure a rescue service from their offshore platforms in wind conditions up to 60 knots."

CHC Helicopter Corporation through its global helicopter support division, Heli-One, has signed a contract for 13 AW139s augmenting a previous order for 20 AW139s. And Gulf Helicopters of Qatar has ordered ten AW139s that will be equipped for offshore passenger transport. "The agreement also includes the establishment of an AgustaWestland AW139 service station in Qatar,"

Gulf Helicopters says. Gulf Helicopters is owned by Qatar Petroleum, which, in turn, is wholly owned by the government of Qatar. It has been providing helicopter services since 1970 to companies throughout the Middle East, India and North Africa and has its own in-house maintenance facility that undertakes fleet maintenance and modification work. In separate news developments, Dubai Air Wing (DAW), which specialises in vip/governmental ferry flights, has ordered a Dauphin AS 365N3 to be delivered at the end of 2008. The DAW says: "The N3 can seat five passengers and will reinforce our current fleet of an AS365 N1 and N2."