Energy services group Petrofac today announced it was in the red in the first half of 2022, though losses were substantially less year on year.
Revenues were also well down, and net losses were £11.48million for the six months to the end of June, compared to a deficit of nearly £73million in the first half of 2021.
Revenues dipped by £300million to £1.006billion.
CEO Sami Iskander said: "Our performance in the first half continues to reflect the Covid-19 related industry challenges, as we work towards completion on many of the projects in the legacy E&C (engineering and construction) portfolio.
"Moving into the second half of 2022, a significant increase in bidding activity has put us firmly on the path to grow backlog over the full year.
"Supported by a strong commodity price environment and an increasing focus on energy security, the outlook for the industry is robust and the work we have done over the past 18 months means that Petrofac enters this important period in a strong competitive position.
"We made good progress on our new energies strategy having entered into a collaboration with Hitachi Energy, a leading player in high voltage direct current and high voltage alternating current technology, to provide joint grid integration and associated infrastructure for the rapidly growing offshore wind market.
"This collaboration strengthens our market position and the large pipeline of opportunities supports our $1billion (£820billion) revenue ambition from new energies in the medium term.
“Our priorities in the second half of the year are clear.
"First, we will continue to safely deliver the existing backlog for our clients, while maintaining cost discipline.
"Second, we will focus on closing out the delayed commercial settlements, to unwind working capital and return to positive free cash flow from 2023.
"Lastly, we will make progress in securing awards in E&C to deliver growth in full year backlog.
"Our recent $200million (£163.94million) provisional award in Algeria, while small, is evidence of our competitiveness and marks the beginning of a multi-year upcycle.”
FTSE100
The FTSE 100 index was flat at 7,505 this morning and there was little movement either in Brent crude futures which were trading at $97.26
Companies reporting today
- Half-year results: Coca Cola, Entain, Petrofac, Prudential