ENRON Direct, one of the UK's leading suppliers of gas and electricity to small and medium-sized businesses, is expanding its Teesside operations, creating 46 new jobs.

The company is establishing a new customer service centre at its administrative base on the Wilton International site.

The new centre, due to open at the beginning of April, will support Enron Direct's existing call centre and customer service operations at its headquarters in Oxford.

The 46 new jobs will be recruited from the Teesside area.

Paul Gavens, chief executive of Enron Teesside, said: "Enron Direct is a successful, fast growing business and I am delighted that it is expanding its operations to Teesside.

He added: "We have already seen tremendous benefit from our existing Teesside employees and we are very confident that we can recruit similar quality people with the attitude and customer orientation that we believe will enhance our operations."

Enron Direct is part of Enron Energy Services. It already employs about 200 people in Oxford and will begin to recruit the Teesside workers from next week.

The company's customers are offered competitive, guaranteed fixed energy prices and a choice of contract duration from one to five years.

Enron took over the former ICI utilities service businesses in January 1999, in a deal worth £300m. Changing hands as part of the sale were ICI's power station at Wilton, its water treatment plant, miles of pipeline corridors, tunnels, railtrack, roads, most of the buildings at ICI Wilton and parcels of development land.

Other assets that transferred to Enron included the Wilton fire crews and equipment, warehouses, laboratories, transport, security and weighbridges.

Enron employs more than 4,500 people across Europe with principal sites in London, Frankfurt, Oslo, Moscow and Madrid. Its operations on Teesside, including the Enron Power station at Wilton, employ about 600 staff, supplying a range of services to the area's chemical companies