Petrofac to beat profit target

Petrofac was the top riser in early trading on Tuesday after the U.K. oilfield services and engineering provider said it will beat its profit target in 2011 as it works through a record order backlog.

The shares rose by as much as 5.5% and were up 4.6% to 1436p at 0957GMT after the company said in a statement that net income will rise at least 20%, more than the 15% goal set at the start of the year. Petrofac expects to have an order backlog of $10.6bn at the end of December, compared with last year’s record $11.7bn, and will have $1.3bn in cash.

“We have a robust backlog, a strong financial position and a good outlook for the bid pipeline,” Chief Financial Officer Tim Weller said on a conference call with journalists. “We’re very confident about our medium-term target of at least doubling our earnings by 2015.”

Chief Executive Officer Ayman Asfari is expanding in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Nigeria. This year Petrofac has won contracts in Mexico and was hired to upgrade floating production and storage facilities in the U.K. North Sea. The company reported net income of $557.8m last year.

“Given our excellent earnings visibility, we expect to deliver strong growth in 2012,” Asfari said in the statement.

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