Petrofac sees FY earnings growth at least 20 pct

The company, whose activities range from designing and building oil and gas infrastructure to safety training, said on Thursday that contract activity was lively in both its construction and offshore businesses, as oil companies sought cost efficiencies by putting out contracts to competitive bids on their expiry.

Its services and training unit was still suffering from depressed activity, although there were signs that this kind of discretionary spend was beginning to resume in recent weeks, it said.

Petrofac's order backlog at the end of September was around $8.5 billion, compared with $8.4 billion at the end of June. It said gross cash balances were around $1.3 billion compared with $0.9 billion in June.

Shares in Petrofac, which closed on Wednesday at 1,052 pence per share, have tripled in value since the start of the year and far outperformed the FTSE All Share Oil and Gas index.

(Reporting by Farah Master; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)