Capital Drilling reveals 'another strong half-yearly result'

Drilling services specialist Capital Drilling turned in "another strong half-yearly result" on Thursday, as the company boasted about its financial performance and the execution of its strategy across the last six months.

Capital Drilling saw revenues drop 4.6% to $54.5m due to a lower fleet utilisation as the group began relocating its assets to West Africa; however, the contractor's EBITDA improved 7.8% to $12.5m thanks to a stronger margin of 22.9%.

Net profits rose 7.7% to $2.8m while earnings per share increased 5% to $0.02 each.

The company said in a statement that capital spending had increased 11% to $4.7m in the first-half as a result of the purchase of replacement rigs and investments made in improving its assets.

The firm closed out the period with net cash of $3.4m on hand.

Capital Drilling scored seven contracts in the first half, locking in work for fifteen of its rigs, yet rig utilisation fell to 46% from 56%, on an average fleet size of 94.

Jamie Boyton, Capital Drilling's executive chairman, said, "The building of our business in West Africa has been the major focus of our growth strategy over the past 6 months."

"The group has developed new operational centres in Côte d'Ivoire and Mali over the period, complementing our long-established operations in Mauritania, all of which provide the infrastructure to deploy further production and exploration rigs into what is regarded as one of the fastest growing drilling markets in the industry," added Boyton.

As of 1200 BST, Capital shares had dropped 10.23% to 39.50p.