Ezra secures subsea construction contract worth $105m

Project management and engineering will commence immediately with offshore execution scheduled to start in first quarter of 2016, utilising the heavy lift and multi-lay deepwater offshore construction vessel Lewek Constellation.

“We are very pleased to be able to strengthen out business relationship with Apache as this new project award follows the recently secured multi-year North Sea frame agreement and the successfully completed installation works for the Coniston Field Development Project in Northwest Australia,” said Lionel Lee, group ceo and managing director of Ezra.

Meanwhile, Singapore-listed Ezra has reported a first quarter net profit of $54.41m, a significant jump from $6.35m recorded in the previous corresponding period.

The surge in profit for the period ended 30 November 2014 was due to a one-off gain on bargain purchase from the acquisition of subsidiaries and turnaround of foreign exchange loss to gain.

The group’s revenue went down 6% year-on-year to $321.02m in the first quarter due mainly to lower contributions from the subsea services division and the offshore support and production services division.

“The recent decline in oil prices has affected the global capital markets, but we believe that the long term fundamentals of the oil and gas industry remain encouraging and that this is expected to drive the continued spending in segments that Ezra operates in,” commented Lee.

“Despite the current headwinds faced by the oil and gas industry in the midst of a lower oil price environment, we are not seeing a slowdown in tendering activities, especially in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa,” he added.

Ezra has secured a backlog of approximately $2.5bn, with majority of the contracts expected to be executed over the next 12-18 months.