Ezra upbeat on long-term outlook of oil and gas industry

Singapore

EZRA Holdings, which has unveiled plans to turn its Oslo-listed EOC Ltd associate into a major Asia-Pacific player in offshore support services, says the long-term fundamentals of the oil and gas industry will continue to drive longer-term industry capital expenditure trends.

"This will benefit the groups' subsea services, marine services and offshore support services divisions," Ezra said yesterday as it posted a 16 per cent rise in third-quarter net profit to US$8.3 million.

The jump in earnings for the three months ended May 31 - from US$7.2 million a year earlier - came as revenue for the offshore-and-marine services group climbed 27 per cent from US$317.1 million to US$402.1 million and gross profit surged to US$65.4 million from US$2.2 million a year ago. The latter was due to the year-ago period "being affected by a one-off higher-than-expected cost at the project level resulting from delays in the execution of certain projects and the recognition of additional costs that were previously unexpected for certain…