Norway's Aker Solutions increased second quarter net profit to NOK678m ($115m), versus NOK141m a year earlier, as revenue surged 52.3% to NOK11.9bn.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation more than doubled to NOK1.36bn.

Aker achieved an order intake in Q2 of NOK23bn, giving it an order backlog at the end of the period of NOK54.1bn – up 26.2% on the previous quarter.

Key contract awards for Aker in the second quarter included a NOK11bn eight-year deal with Statoil for charter and operation of the so-called Category B well intervention rig to work off Norway.

The company said tendering activity is high with an increasing focus on developing complex fields in deep water driving demand for engineering and front-end design services.

Going forward, Aker is targeting subsea jobs in the North Sea, Brazil, Asia Pacific and West Africa, as well as deliveries for a raft of 93 deep-water drilling vessels currently on order worldwide, with analysts expecting 20 to 30 such newbuilds to be ordered annually until 2020.

Aker is also aiming for work on floating production units for deep-water fields, with a historically high order backlog for 74 such vessels and an additional 230 in the final design, planning or study phase.

source:asiasis