Financial Times reported that Petrofac, the oil and gas services company, maintained its guidance that it is set to generate net profit of more than USD 500 million for the full year as contract wins in Algeria, Iraq and Malaysia boosted order intake.
Orders of USD 1.6 billion over the first 6 months of the year were increased further by the award of further contracts last week by Pemax, Mexico's state oil monopoly.
Though small in scale, this month Petrofac also won two of the first 3 private oil production contracts made available by Mexico in more than 50 years, giving the FTSE 100 Company a potentially valuable foothold in the country as its government attempts to prise open Mexico's heavily protected energy sector to private capital.
During the period, Petrofac which has high exposure to North Africa and the Middle East also completed gas projects in Algeria and Syria.
In March, Mr Ayman Asfari the company's Syria born chief executive warned there could be bumps in the region in the year ahead prompted by political turmoil. But on Monday he insisted Petrofac remained on course to deliver like-for-like net profit growth of 15% over the full year in line with current market expectations.
Interim revenues rose by 25% from USD 2.2 billion to USD 2.7 billion as adjusted net profit rose 6% to USD 246 million. But pre tax profit fell from USD 417 million to USD 299 million as last year's interim results were boosted by USD 126 million exceptional gain on the demerger of Petrofac's EnQuest business.
The company is to pay an interim dividend of 17.4 cents, a 26% advance on last year's payment of 10.54 cents, payable from interim earnings per share of 72.84 cents. Petrofac ended the 6 months to June 30th 2011 with net cash of USD 1.77 billion up from USD 975 million at the end of 2010.
During the period, Petrofac won new business to provide maintenance services on the offshore Rumaila oilfield in Iraq for BP following a contract win with Shell on the Majnoon field in the south of the country. It also won work with Petronas of Malaysia and on other projects in Thailand and Romania while extending its exposure to risk bearing lump sum projects on the UK continental shelf which allow for great profits on successful completion.
Mr Asfari said that Petrofac ended the interim period with an order backlog of USD 11.4 billion. We remain confident of achieving our medium term growth target of more than doubling our recurring 2010 earnings by 2015.
(Sourced from Financial Times)
