Petrosea reports 114% jump in net profit

JAKARTA (JP): Publicly listed engineering construction and contract mining services firm PT Petrosea, said here on Friday that its net profit rose 114 percent to Rp 19.8 billion (US$1.75 million) during the period January to March, from Rp 8.1 billion in the same period last year.

Company corporate secretary Andrew Holbron attributed the sharp increase in the profit to the sharp drop in operating costs.

He said that the company's operating costs dropped by 26 percent to Rp 167.50 billion during the first quarter of this year from Rp 225.81 billion in the January-March 2000 period, despite the sharp increase in fuel expenditure.

"The lower costs were the result of our consolidation measures," Holbron stated after the annual general meeting of shareholders.

As part of the consolidation measures, the company sold a number of used mining assets and under-utilized spare parts, he said.

Holbron said he was upbeat that profitability during the three months could be maintained, thanks to an increase in the jobs awarded to the company for rest of the year.

He said that Petrosea won new contracts early this year to provide services to several mining and oil projects, including British Petroleum's $2.7 million oil facilities installation offshore from Bali, and Kaltim Prima Coal's projects.

"We'll also sign another contract next month," he said, but he was reluctant to provide any further details.

At present, Petrosea has about 20 big clients, including oil companies PT Total Indonesia and Gulf Resources Ltd, gold and copper mining company PT Freeport Indonesia, gold mining companies PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara and PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, coal mining company PT Bukit Baiduri, and PT Kelian Equatorial Mining.

In the meeting, the shareholders approved the management's proposal to pay dividends of Rp 100 per share for the financial year 2000.

The company's net profit plunged 37 percent to Rp 35.5 billion in 2000, from Rp 56.7 billion the previous year, despite a 47 percent increase in its operating income to Rp 1.2 trillion during the year. (05)