Technip Quarterly Net Rises 33% as Oil Projects Spur Growth
Technip SA (TEC), Europe’s second-largest oilfield-services provider, reported a 33 percent increase in fourth-quarter profit and said new discoveries will bolster the business in the coming year. The shares advanced to a record.
Net income rose to 149.5 million euros ($195 million) from 112.2 million euros a year before, Paris-based Technip said in a statement today. Sales gained 14 percent to 2.01 billion euros.
“Technip reported a strong set of results, some 14 percent above our expectations,” said Bertrand Hodee, an analyst at Kepler Capital Markets in Paris.
The company advanced 2 percent to 79.80 euros in Paris, the highest since its initial public offering in 1994, giving it a market value of 8.9 billion euros.
“We continue to see opportunities in nearly all the markets in which we operate,” Chief Executive Officer Thierry Pilenko said on a conference call. Management will recommend a dividend increase of 9 percent to 1.58 euros a share, he said.
Higher oil prices spurred exploration spending, increasing demand for Technip products such as flexible offshore pipelines. The company, which announced a plan to expand in Brazil a year ago, said on Feb. 8 it had won a five-year order from Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4) to supply $2.1 billion of the pipes.
Technip is seeking revenue of 7.65 billion to 8 billion euros in 2012, with a subsea operating margin of 15 percent and the one for onshore-offshore of 6 percent to 7 percent. The subsea margin was 16.4 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with 16.2 percent a year earlier. The combined onshore-offshore margin was 6.5 percent, up from 5.9 percent a year earlier.
The company had an order backlog of 10.42 billion euros at the end of 2011, compared with 10.12 billion euros at the end of September. The fourth-quarter order intake was 2.24 billion euros, compared with 2.47 billion euros the prior year. Europe’s largest oilfield-services company is Italy’s Saipem SpA. (SPM)
To contact the reporter on this story: Tara Patel in Paris at tpatel2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net
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