ENGINEERING GROUP Kentz had a backlog of contracts worth close to $1.5 billion (€1.06 billion) at the end of December, the Irish group said yesterday.
Kentz, which provides construction, instrumentation and other services to the oil and gas and pharmaceutical industries, said in a trading statement that its performance in 2009 was “strong”.
It said its backlog, the potential revenues from future contracts on its books, increased by 50 per cent to $1.49 billion at the end of December from $1 billion a year earlier. It signed contracts worth just over $1 billion between January and December 2009.
Backlogs give a picture of potential future turnover.
The group said it had net cash of $165 million at the end of December, arise on the $153 million it reported 12 months earlier.
During the year, multi-national oil company Chevron awarded Kentz and its partner Decmil a $500 million Australian dollars (€320 million) contract to build the construction village needed to develop the Barrow Island liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in western Australia.
Kentz also won a deal to provide telecommunications and a third, with partner Thiess, for five electrical and instrumentation services. Barrow Island is one of the world’s biggest natural gas projects, and involves bringing the fuel ashore from offshore fields, storage plants and an LNG plant.
The company continued with operations in the Middle East, Africa, Canada and Russia.
