24th Mar 2015 10:31
LONDON (Alliance News) - Oil and gas engineering services company Plexus Holdings PLC on Tuesday reported a rise in pretax profit and revenue in the first half of its financial year and hiked its dividend as it said it appears to be navigating through the difficult oil and gas market conditions.
Pretax profit for the six months to the end of December was GBP2.0 million, up from GBP1.5 million last year.
Revenue increased to GBP13.5 million from GBP12.6 million, boosted by a good performance for its POS-GRIP friction-grip wellhead engineering equipment, due to both new contract wins and existing deals with a number of international oil and gas companies, particularly for high pressure or high temperature applications. It said sales were particularly strong in the North Sea, which offset some weakness in its international operations, as contracts came to an end.
Plexus expressed confidence that, as the need for oil and gas companies to drill deeper continues to grow, the need for wellhead technology like the POS-GRIP equipment will continue to increase. It added that its rental exploration business is based on drilling activities which are proving more resilient to the oil price slide, including shallow water offshore drilling by jack-up rigs and high pressure and high temperature gas field work.
The company will pay an interim dividend of 0.51 pence per share, up 6% year-on-year.
Shares in Plexus were up 3.7% to 197.00 pence Tuesday.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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