Petrofac Ltd on Thursday said it swung to loss in the first half, as activity levels fell.

The London-headquartered energy infrastructure company with core markets in the Middle East and North Africa said it swung to a pretax loss of $160 million in the six months to June 30, from profit of $34 million a year before.

This resulted from ‘low levels of activity’ in its Engineering & Construction division, the largest revenue contributor.

Revenue dropped by 3.2% to $1.21 billion from $1.24 billion

Looking ahead, Petrofac cited ‘robust’ new awards in E&C, with a total pipeline scheduled for award by December of next year worth $44 billion, while its Assets Solutions division is set to receive $16 billion.

The company also expects ‘broadly neutral’ cash flow in the second half of 2023, and a ‘positive tailwind’ from cash advances relating to the new E&C awards won in the last six months.

Chief Executive Officer Tareq Kawash said: ‘As I look ahead to the second half, my focus is on continuing to close out the legacy portfolio, improving our financial resilience and strengthening the balance sheet through the commercial settlements and advance payments due in the period, whilst delivering exemplary execution and selectively bidding to grow our high-quality backlog.’

Shares in Petrofac were down 3.7% at 84.25 pence each in London on Thursday midday.

Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.