Oilfield support services Petrofac said it is experiencing high levels of bidding activity, which should see its backlog pile up over the coming months.

Group backlog at the end of September was $9.4bn, up from $8.9bn at the end of June. Of this, Engineering, Construction, Operations & Maintenance accounted for $8.7bn (June: $7.4bn) and Integrated Energy Services $1.8bn (June: $1.5bn).

Net cash balances were down to $0.5bn at the end of September from $0.8bn at the end of June.

"We continue to deliver good operational performance and we remain on course to deliver net profit growth in 2012 of at least 15%," said Ayman Asfari, Group Chief Executive of Petrofac.

Together with the group's existing portfolio of Engineering, Construction, Operations & Maintenance (ECOM) and Integrated Energy Services (IES) projects, the group's burgeoning backlog "underpins our confidence that we will continue to deliver earnings growth in 2013 and beyond and that we will achieve our target of more than doubling our recurring group 2010 earnings by 2015," Asfari added.

ECOM

The Onshore Engineering & Construction division has taken in $1.3bn in orders in the year to date, but with slippage in the timing of certain contract tender processes and the anticipated delay in the award of some projects from 2012 to 2013, the group expects Onshore Engineering & Construction backlog to remain broadly flat over the second half of the year.

The Offshore Projects & Operations (OPO) division continues to perform well, the company said, with high levels of bidding activity on both operations support contracts and offshore capital projects in the Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Asia Pacific regions.

Recent awards of front-end engineering and design and conceptual studies for external customers have led to increased activity levels for the Engineering & Consulting Services unit.

IES

The group is pleased with the start to its field operations on the Magallanes and Santuario production enhancement contracts, which include the deployment of three drilling rigs and two work-over rigs on the blocks.

On the Ticleni production enhancement contract for Petrom in Romania, as well as progressing other key work items, the IES division commenced a two rig drilling programme in July, together with a work-over rig dedicated to sidetracks on the field.


JH

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