Energy Project Delays Cut Petrofac Profit Nearly in Half

Aug 26 (Reuters) – British oil and gas services company Petrofac Ltd reported its first-half profit almost halved, hurt by slow progress at some of its projects.

Shares of the FTSE-100 company rose 1 percent after the result, which the company said in May would be hit by the delays.

Net profit fell to $136 million for the six months ended June 30, from $243 million a year earlier.

The company has said its profits this year would be hit by delays in the Greater Stella Area project in the North Sea and lower than expected production at the Ticleni project in Romania.

Revenue fell 11 percent to $2.5 billion.

Petrofac, whose biggest division designs and builds oil and gas facilities, said its order backlog at June 30 rose to $20.3 billion, up from $14.3 billion a year ago.

The company repeated its net profit forecast of $580 million to $600 million for the year, and said it expects a significant increase in activity in its onshore engineering and construction division in the second half of the year.

Petrofac shares hit 1139 pence in early trade on the London Stock Exchange before easing back to a flat 1126 pence at 0718 GMT.

(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bangalore; Editing by Sunil Nair)