Singapore: Swiber Starts Strong in 2012

Swiber Holdings Limited, a world class integrated construction and support services provider to the offshore industry, announced that it has secured a string of contract wins totaling approximately US$216 million at the beginning of the year, for offshore construction projects and vessel chartering services in Southeast Asia and South Asia.

Concurrently, its Middle East joint venture (“JV”) has secured a contract win amounting to over US$38 million for vessel chartering services in the Middle East. With this latest slew of contract wins, Swiber’s healthy order backlog is maintained at over US$1.0 billion.

Swiber’s contract wins entail offshore construction works that span a wide range of services for engineering, procurement, construction, transportation and installation of offshore wellhead platforms and pipelines. In addition, the Group will provide vessel chartering services which include the deployment of a campaign work barge in the Asia-­‐Pacific region. Contracts are expected to be completed by 2013.

Separately, the vessel charter contract awarded to Swiber’s Middle East JV from a major oil producer in the Middle East includes chartering of support vessels for a committed period of 3 years and an additional option period of 2 years. These offshore projects will commence immediately and are expected to continue until 2017, if all options are exercised.

Swiber’s Middle East JV was established in 2008 to provide services in the field of offshore construction for Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Installation and Commissioning projects in the Gulf Cooperation Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Commented Mr. Francis Wong, Group Chief Executive Officer and President of Swiber, “We are starting on a very strong footing this year. The contract win by our JV Company represents our first entry into the Middle East region, and is a major milestone for Swiber. In comparison to the first quarter of 2011, this year’s contract wins have been secured earlier in the year and overall, in larger contract sizes, signaling the phenomenal growth of the offshore oil and gas sector.”

This first series of wins by Swiber comprises repeat orders from existing clients as well as contract wins from new customers, all of whom are major oil companies in Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Middle East. These contract wins bear testimony to the Group’s top-­‐notch solutions as well as strong asset and resource capabilities, to meet the stringent requirements of its customers.

Mr. Wong added, “The contract wins that we have secured from repeat customers reaffirm Swiber’s leading position as a reliable and trusted service provider of choice amongst the world’s major oil players. And, our ability to win contracts from new customers attests to the level of expertise, quality, and professionalism that we bring to all of our projects in the offshore oil and gas market. These are indicative of Swiber’s current strong foothold in the offshore oil and gas industry in the region and ties in well with one of our key strategies to continue to deepen and expand our geographical presence globally.

“Our offshore projects are well-­‐diversified geographically. This enables us to strategically plan our offshore projects and vessel deployment based on work seasons, and maximise the utilisation of our vessels, thereby distributing our costs over a wider base of contracts and enhancing our cost competitiveness. Also, our vessel fleet enhancements carried out in the past few years continue to bear fruit, enabling us to concurrently manage our offshore projects while securing more contract wins.

“We have a strong order book visibility of over US$1 billion, with offshore projects spread out over the next couple of years. This gives us a solid footing to navigate forward.”

Energy Business Advisor, Douglas-­‐Westwood, has forecasted that cash-­‐flush Asian firms will spend US$28.8 billion on investments in drilling, production and deep-­‐sea exploration from this year to 2016. This figure will be more than double spent in the five-­‐year period spanning 2007-­‐ 2011. International Energy Agency (IEA) also reported that Oil Demand in Middle East could increase from 8.0 million barrels to 8.3 million barrels per day in 2012, and that India and China could boost regional crude demand by about 240,000 barrels a day from this year to 2016.

India’s government plans to expand the size of its targeted strategic petroleum reserve to 132 million barrels from its current 39 million barrel stockpile by 2020. IEA expects China to have a total of 500 million barrels by 2016.

“We will continue to leverage on the tailwind of the exciting offshore oil and gas industry growth. With high levels of oil prices supporting sustained spending by large energy companies, offshore EPIC activity is gaining traction. Swiber is well-­‐girded to capitalise on the ample opportunities that Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East will continually offer, arising from these regions’ structural growth and energy security demands.”

With a slew of new contract wins, key strategies in place, strong order book visibility, and robust opportunities in the Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Middle East regions, Swiber has firmly entrenched its place in the big league and is set to take on bigger ventures and capture fresh and exciting opportunities in offshore oil and gas world.

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Subsea World News Staff , February 06, 2012;  Image: Swiber