Petrofac on track to hit full-year profit targets

Oilfield services giant Petrofac has reiterated its target of achieving net profit growth of at least 15 per cent this year, saying that operations continue to perform in line with expectations.

The group, which said in October that it had seen "high levels of bidding activity" going into the fourth quarter, said that it now expects the group backlog to be around $11.6bn by the end of 2012, up from $9.4bn at the end of the third quarter (September 30th), and $10.8bn at the end of 2011.

"Overall, we are well positioned to grow next year and beyond and we are confident of achieving our target of more than doubling our recurring 2010 group earnings by 2015," said Chief Executive Ayman Asfari.

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In its Onshore Engineering & Construction unit, its biggest division which accounted for $4.15bn of the group's $5.8bn sales last year, the company said that it has made "good progress" across all operations.

Despite seeing some slippage in the timing of certain contract tender processes during the year and the delay in the award of some projects from 2012 to 2013, Petrofac remains optimistic with the division's year-end backlog expected to be $5.0bn (up from $4.6bn at the end of the second half).

Its next largest division, Offshore Projects & Operations (accounting for $1.25bn of group sales in 2011) continues to see high levels of bidding activity across all geographies; order intake has totalled $2.1bn in the year to date.