Lamprell sees annual earnings above hopes

Oil & gas services company Lamprell said strong operational and financial performance would result in full-year earnings above hopes, but they would be heavily weighted towards the first half.Lamprell completed four major projects in the six months to June 30th ahead of budgeted margins, helped by some early savings from productivity improvements across the group and overhead reductions."As announced previously, we expect to start seeing the benefits from these initiatives during the course of 2014 although the full run-rate is not anticipated to be achieved until late 2015," the group said, adding that it had also improved first half performance in its land rig services business.It also succeeded in contract bids, with two rig orders from Ensco and Shelf Drilling respectively and the recent contract award from Petrofac for modules to be used in Abu Dhabi.Lamprell completed a rights issue announced last month and expects to finish an associated debt refinancing in July. "As a result of the above, the company now expects earnings for the year as a whole to be ahead of expectations, although this will be heavily weighted towards the first half of the year," it said. "Our bid pipeline remains strong and we remain focused on the conversion of our pipeline of opportunities into further contract wins." PW