Petrofac profits rise as CEO returns to full duties

Oil services outfit Petrofac on Thursday said full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 3.7% to $730m as it announced chief executive Ayman Asfari would resume full duties “with immediate effect”.

Asfari was placed under restrictions by Petrofac last May after the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) started a probe into Petrofac in connection with an inquiry into Monaco-based Unaoil over suspected bribery, corruption and money laundering.

Petrofac reported a net loss of $29m after exceptional items of $372m. Revenue fell 18.8% to $6.40bn.

The company added that it would exit the deep-water business and would take a $176m impairment charge related to its offshore construction vessel JDS6000.

The order backlog was $10.2bn compared with $11.7bn a year earlier and had $5.2bn of secured revenue for 2018.