Amec Foster Wheeler, the British global oil and gas services company with offices in Abu Dhabi, Oman and Doha and which is being bought by John Wood Group, said its full-year pretax loss grew as the oil market decline forced companies to delay or cancel contracts.
The company’s loss before tax was £542 million (Dh2.55 billion), compared with a pretax loss of £235m a year earlier.
The company reported a 15 per cent fall in its full-year adjusted trading profit to £318m for the year ended December 31. Revenue slipped to £5.44bn pounds from £5.45bn a year earlier.
“Given conditions in natural resources end markets, our 2016 trading performance was robust, as we benefited from the breadth of our business – especially the record performance from solar – cost saving actions and the fall in sterling in the second half of the year,” said the chief executive Jonathan Lewis.
“We continue to expect another year of decline in oil and gas activity in 2017 and for solar activity to reduce significantly from the record levels seen in 2016.”
Amec has won a number of projects in the region.
In 2015 its contract for UZ750 project, which began in 2008, was extended to redevelop the Upper Zakum field about 80km offshore north-west of Abu Dhabi, which consists of four artificial islands along with associated drilling, as well as production facilities.
The contractors’ delivery of reimbursable engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) scopes of work is overseen by Zadco, in addition to commissioning and start-up support of the facilities.
The work is slated for completion in December this year.
It also won a three-year technical services agreement contract awarded by Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company SAOC (Orpic) in 2015 for the Mina Al Fahal Refinery and Sohar Refinery, Aromatics and Polypropylene plants, both in Oman. That year the company was also awarded a contract by the Oman Tank Terminal Company for the front-end engineering design of the Ras Markaz Crude Oil Park Project in Oman. This project involves phased development of a terminal designed to hold about 200 million barrels of crude oil, making it one of the largest oil storage facilities of its type.
Amec Foster Wheeler has been active in the Middle East since 1930. Today, the company supplies a wide range of services and technology to all sectors of the process industry in the Middle East including environmental, oil and gas – both onshore and offshore – refining, petrochemicals and power. As well as the UAE, Oman and Qatar, the company has an established presence in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
chnelson@thenational.ae
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