EMAS Offshore bags US$24m contracts

Offshore support vessel owner EMAS Offshore has bagged three contracts worth up to US$24 million, though two of those were from a unit of its parent company, it said in a Singapore Exchange filing late on Monday night.

EMAS Offshore, which is primarily listed on the Oslo bourse and has a secondary listing here, said in a statement that one charter win was from an oil major in West Africa and the other two were in Thailand.

Its Thailand contracts were both awarded to EMAS Energy, a unit of Ezra's well services division, EMAS said, adding that it won both "after a competitive tendering process".

"Our strategy of focusing our efforts in West Africa where offshore activities remain healthy is paying off," said EMAS Offshore chief executive Jon Dunstan in a statement.

The charters have an average duration of about 1.1 years and are expected to start in Q4 of the group's FY 2015, which is June through August this year.

The group also posted an after-tax profit for Q3 of US$5.18 million on Monday night - about 28 times the US$182,000 earnings it recorded the same time the previous year. However, that jump was largely due to a bigger contribution from associates. Profit from operations actually fell 41 per cent year-on-year to US$1.89 million.

Revenue slid 15 per cent year-on-year to US$59.24 million for the three months ended May 31, mainly due to weakness in two of its shallow water offshore support vessel segments, EMAS Offshore said.

Q3 earnings per share was 0.012 US cents, up from 0.001 US cents last year. Net asset value per share fell to US$1.15 as at May 31 from US$2.84 as at Aug 31, 2014.

"We continue to take steps to reduce costs, implement initiatives to improve operational efficiency and increase focus on vessel utilisation," Mr Dunstan said.

The counter rose half a cent to end at S$0.34 on Tuesday.