Petrofac, the international oil and gas facility service provider, said yesterday it had made a good start to 2009 and was confident the year would be another one of strong growth.
Chairman Rodney Chase told shareholders at the company’s AGM that Petrofac’s largest business, engineering and construction, had secured £3.29billion of new contract awards in the first quarter of 2009 in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Algeria, giving it “high revenue visibility” until 2011.
He said that the company’s offshore engineering and operations, engineering service, training and production service businesses had performed broadly in line with expectations in the year to date, although in the lower-oil-price environment they were starting to see evidence of customers adjusting their discretionary spending plans.
Mr Chase said that in energy developments, Petrofac announced last month that it had begun production from the West Don field in the UK North Sea, and output from the first production well on the field had been good.
He added that drilling of two production wells on the nearby Don Southwest field had now been completed and production was expected to start towards the end of next month. A second production well and two water-injection wells at Don Southwest and a water-injection well at West Don are expected to be completed and brought on stream during the second half of the year.
Mr Chase said Petrofac’s order backlog had risen to about £5.39billion at the end of April from £2.63billion at the end of December.
The group’s financial position had strengthened from the end of 2008, with a gross cash balance now in excess of £592million, he added.
Petrofac has more than 11,000 employees worldwide including 4,000 working in and out of Aberdeen, and operates from five main operational centres – Aberdeen, Sharjah, Woking, Chennai and Mumbai – and a further 19 offices worldwide. Its shares gained 2% to 602p.