OREANDA-NEWS. Wood Group has signed a collaborative agreement with the Canadian technology company Librestream Technologies (Librestream). The two companies will work in an exclusive industry-specific partnership to provide advanced business solutions for operations, maintenance and integrity challenges in the oil & gas sector. The solutions will combine Wood Group's in-depth, hands-on industry knowledge with Librestream's real time virtual video collaboration digital application.

Under the partnership, Wood Group and Librestream will also co-develop a number of discrete new technologies designed to significantly reduce the time for problem solving and associated implementation, thereby increasing productivity at remote sites both onshore and offshore.

Steve Wayman, head of strategy and development at Wood Group, said: "Delivering improved efficiency, effectiveness and value in the technical solutions we deliver to our clients, is at the heart of our innovation agenda. We believe that significant streamlining of many traditional duration-based activities through the application of smart technology such as this can be a game-changer for the industry.

"We have been working with Librestream for some time to test prototype digital devices in real-life operational situations and under this agreement we will leverage their existing pioneering technologies and explore new development opportunities that will grow our combined offering; further enabling Wood Group to solve life cycle cost challenges faster and with greater certainty.

"We are excited by this collaboration, which exploits great synergies between our two companies and will continue to position Wood Group as an innovative leader across the markets in which we operate."

Kerry Thacher, chief executive and founder of Librestream, which is headquartered in Winnipeg, Canada, said: "We are delighted to be entering this agreement with Wood Group. Librestream has successfully provided video collaboration technology to a range of industries worldwide since 2007. The partnership with Wood Group brings technology and services together as a coherent solution, delivering significantly faster response times between remote sites. By collaborating on new technology development, we will enhance the breadth and depth of our digital solutions platform."