One of East Anglia's fastest-growing oil and gas firms is to target new customers and the green energy market by adding a new company to its stable.Norwich-based Acteon is creating a new operation called Pulse Structural Monitoring - spinning out existing research and technical expertise from its 2H Offshore subsidiary into a new company.

One of East Anglia's fastest-growing oil and gas firms is to target new customers and the green energy market by adding a new company to its stable.

Norwich-based Acteon is creating a new operation called Pulse Structural Monitoring - spinning out existing research and technical expertise from its 2H Offshore subsidiary into a new company.

Acteon said the new division would target new contracts in the oil and gas industries and take on existing offshore monitoring work carried out by 2H for Chevron in the Gulf of Mexico.

But the firm added that it was investigating “wind turbine monitoring… being a business area that is sure to grow in importance over the next few years”.

Pei An, head of Pulse Structural Monitoring, said: “The technology in this area has developed considerably in recent years.

“What was once viewed as a research and development exercise has evolved into an established commercial business.

“We need to be attuned to customers' requirements in a more mature and increasingly competitive market.”

The announcement comes just a fortnight after the Crown Estate announced the award of nine licences to build windfarms off the UK coast, including the “East Anglian Array”, a windfarm of about 1,000 turbines about 15 miles offshore from Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft.

Founded in 2001, Acteon is a group of more than a dozen companies employing 1,650 people across Europe, the Middle East, North and South America and the Far East.

The firm has its group head office in Norwich's Ferry Road and employs about 130 people in Norfolk, including staff at Great Yarmouth-based subsidiary Claxton, which supplies equipment and services for offshore construction.

At the end of last year, the firm said it expected “growth” in 2010 despite a likely falling revenue for 2009 in the face of a drop in world oil prices.

The firm has been in the Sunday Times/PricewaterhouseCoopers Fast Track league of companies for the last three years running and saw turnover rise by 59pc in 2007-8 to �309m. Pre-tax profits rose from �25.4m to �34.6m.

In 2008, Acteon extended its portfolio of energy companies with the acquisition of an 80pc stake in Brazilian offshore anchor and piling manufacturer Fluke Engenharia for �19.5m, followed by the �3.7m acquisition of Singaporean pipeline inspection and maintenance firm Construction and Piling Equipment renamed Cape Group.