Hunting said yesterday that it anticipated a trading performance for 2009 towards the high end of market expectations despite recessionary global markets, volatile commodity prices and depressed drilling activity.
Dennis Proctor, chief executive of the UK-based international energy service group, said: “Trading in the Middle East and south-east Asia has remained steady with contracts in these regions continuing into 2010.
“In Canada and the US, drilling and exploration for natural gas remains depressed relative to last year, with smaller operators continuing to experience difficulty in obtaining adequate credit to start new projects.
“Our well-construction and completion divisions are both expected to experience a lower performance compared with last year, while the newly created well-intervention division will see an improvement as a result of acquisitions made during the year.
“Exploration and production, due to commodity prices, will report results well below the prior year and Gibson Shipbrokers, with low pricing in global shipping markets, is also expected to report results well down on the prior year.
“In addition to the acquisitions of PT SMB Industri in Indonesia and National Coupling Company in Houston announced earlier in the year, the acquisition of Welltonic in Aberdeen completed on December 10 will further strengthen well-intervention operations.”
Mr Proctor said Hunting continued to review potential acquisitions, adding: “Early sector forecasts anticipate around a 6% increase in exploration and production activities during 2010. Much of this improvement is due to oil demand growth in China, India and other south-east Asian countries, while the rest of the world may see only modest, if any, growth.
“However, the acquisitions made in the second half of 2009 combined with completed capital projects should position the company to take advantage of growth opportunities in 2010.”