I've spent the last few days looking at Hallin Marine, and they tipped me over the edge, announcing a contract win this morning. It looks a quality business.

Hallin floated on AIM in June. Established in 1998, Hallin is profitable - just under $1 million on turnover of $20million last time. market cap just 17 million.

It maintains, installs, surveys and repairs seabed equipment - pipelines etc. The company itself says that it is impacted by activity in the oil market, and when they floated oil was around $55. Now it is as we all know $65. Of course if you believe the oil market is still worth investing in (I have avoided to date) you'll probably like the fact that Halling raised funds at 64p and is currently 55p to buy.

They will benefit from the stronger dollar (lost over $200,00 on currency last year). Their saturation diving systems can support up to 12 people for a month on the seabed and customers have included BP, Shell, Mitsui, Premier and Total. it's important to have regional presence. As well as business bases in Singapore, China and Thailand they are expanding into the UAE.

It looks a good way to have exposure to oil in a relatively low risk area.

Worth taking an initial stake imho, as i have this morning.

Here is this morning's contract, which represents 25% of last year's turnover:

'Hallin Marine Subsea International plc

Hallin Marine Wins US$5m Order to Support Gulf of Thailand Pipeline

Hallin Marine, the AIM quoted provider of subsea solutions to the oil and gas
industry, announces that it expects to supply Diving Support Vessel services to
the PTT 3rd Pipeline Construction Project in the Gulf of Thailand. Hallin is in
receipt of a letter of intent* from Hyundai Heavy Industries ('HHI') regarding
this contract. This is in addition to Hallin's contract with HHI, signed in
July, to supply construction diving services to the same project.

The Diving Support Vessel work will take place in two phases, the first starting
in December 2005 and the second scheduled for February 2006, with a contract
value of approximately US$5 million.

The PTT 3rd Pipeline Project is a major expansion of the Thai Offshore Natural
Gas Infrastructure, which provides gas for the domestic market. A 606km
pipeline and associated offshore facilities is to be constructed from PTT's
Arthit field in the Gulf of Thailand to a landfall at Layong, south of Bangkok.
Under the two subcontracts awarded by HHI, Hallin Marine will provide all the
construction diving services from three pipelay barges as well as conducting
Saturation Diving and Hot Tapping of connections into the pipeline from the
Diving Support Vessel.

John Giddens, Chief Executive of Hallin Marine, said:

'We are extremely pleased to have been awarded this work. The Diving Support
Vessel side involves Hot Tapping and Saturation Diving services and is in
addition to the onboard barge construction diving services that we are already
contracted to supply to HHI for the PTT 3rd Pipeline Project. The winning of
these orders confirms that Hallin Marine is able to provide HHI with the
increasingly complex services they require, at competitive prices.'

stock up a little over the last couple of days....

results last year were 12th Sept, so expecting about the same time this year?

Ran strongly into then up from good results a year ago - should deliver knockout figures this time around, judging from contracts, +day & utilization rates. FY eps THIS year should be in region of 11p, so only 6x PE. New ships to come into use in 2007....

Should deliver strong statement, good cash flows and possibly a dividend surprise

Amities / Although this company provides specialist equipment to companies who operate in a corrupt,dangerous, and cut throat environment fraught for the most part with geo-political problems and tensons the rotary count { inc. workovers }even working at full capacity cannot cope with industry { operator} demand. !! .. .lts as simple as that really. The dearth has brought us to a vicious bottleneck which for once cannot be laid at the IEA or OPECS front door.. We simply UNDERINVESTED at a time when oil was $20 p/b and as such we are witnessing many of the smaller junior expos struggling even to get a sniff of an appropriate rig / for up to 12/ 18 months . ...................................................................................................................Of those who manage who manage to attain rigs they are ALWAYS delayed as the previous operator exercises that part of the contract which allows them a usul 3 month extension .The chronic underestimated shortage of both FPVS, ROVS, and all manner of offshore specialist submersives right down to simple couplings and come to that the utter and total misunderstanding of the entire oil industry makes for dismal reading...... BUT make Hallin worth casting an eye over. Fundementallyi would of course prefer the gearing to be a little lower; but like the water industry it is a capital intensive business and cashburn is severe ,..Lets face it ; Even with oil at record levels the actual producers have suffered quite severe s/p retracements this past 2 months . BUT !! The gas/oil infrastructure suppliers have remained bullish and agggresive, and the only question we need concern ourselves is how snr management deal with what could be a real money spinner {Wait until the "summer driving season and the first drop of snow in NY manifests itself , and i think junior and midcap oil will take off taking with it a host of suppliers on their second leg north . ..Having observed SDX, Abbots Woods ,Hunting ( lronically Hunting released its finals today which illustatated profits SURGED over 850% !!!....gulp !!,,,,,,,ALORS !!! and a plathora of similar related related secondaries who enjoyed success in equal measure ; and all which seems to suggest the neccassary aggresive growth which SD says quite rightly is needed to justify its place in such illustrious company is very possible . . i am hoping Hallin can replicate thier peers relative performances . And Why not ? Only the matter of gearing is a weakness - but i concede i could perhaps picking straws as this variable poses very little concern to myself as i believe oil will NEVER retreat to $25 p/b as suggested recently by Lord Browne @ BP. . Whose force feeding that man such patent nonsense ; or is he too busy counting his bonus' . .. Morelike $100 during the winter ,,and once hedge funds & co stop " shorting " oil NOTHING can hold it back . NOTHING !! , But nobody seems to give a jot reg. cost anyway . Had the case for $100 p/b been made clearer to the market in the 1980,s it would have crashed .. But now ? - qui sait ? . Who knows or really cares ?? . OIL is the / OUR prerequisite to modern 21st century living .....and ANYWAY the boys at the Fed Reserve will print the money regardlesss by way of T Bonds winging their way to China and lndia and dare i say , Vietnam. .... . Anyway im with you boys ... VERY Exiting times ahead i hope . !! ..B/Chance ..@+ J

Okay all gone quiet on this one

I don't much like these type of stocks as when the going is good their employees i.e. divers and others tend to demand and get massive wage rises so longer term contracts, priced on old salaries, lose most of their margin. As such I have not been involved

But look at the graph fallen massively since the 77p placing on this sort of margin problem but on little volume. Contract news has been good too. For details look at TheFrenchConnection above

Why I am interested now is that these guys normally have a Jan trade statement so if everything OK to good as previously good chance of a jump towards 60p IMHO
If no statement by end of this month though just throw out

Company just confirmed that they will be making a trading statement " about the same time as last year" ie 16th Jan ish. No negative pre-announcement, so hopefully a useful update will follow.

Decent bounce now starting today, with a bit of volume

"Trading levels for the year have been ahead of expectations."

delivering the new diving systems and ROV's on time, already earning them money. Contract dispute settled as well.


The offshore oil and gas industry has remained extremely buoyant during 2006
driven both by the continued high price for oil and gas combined with the
significant repair activities in the Gulf of Mexico following the damage
incurred in the 2005 hurricane season. As a result there has continued to be a
high demand for Hallin's services.

The extensive refurbishment programme of its older Saturation Diving Systems was
completed in the first half of the year which allowed utilisation levels to
return to historically normal levels in the second half of the year. The second
half also saw a significant increase in the number of assets in use by Hallin
with a consequent rise in the level of turnover.

The construction of two new Saturation Diving Systems was completed during this
period and during August and September Hallin took delivery of its first four
Remote Operating Vehicles (ROV's) which have all been satisfactorily
commissioned and engaged in profitable work.

Trading levels for the year have been ahead of expectations. Profit levels would
also have been ahead of expectations except for the "one time" cost of settling
the contract dispute outlined in our Interim Results Statement which was
released in September 2006. The details of the dispute settlement are set out
below.


SETTLEMENT OF CONTRACT DISPUTE

As stated in our Interim Results Statement released in September 2006, a
significant contractual dispute arose with a key client during the trading year.

After careful consideration this was settled earlier this month and this has
resulted in a non-recurring write off of US$1.65 million.

Although Hallin's legal advice was that it was likely to be successful at
arbitration, having regard to the scale of the legal costs, the possibility of
their being irrecoverable, the extended time associated with arbitration and the
considerable ongoing impact on management resources, the directors reluctantly
decided, on balance, it was in the long term interests of the Company to settle
the dispute. As a result, invoices outstanding with the client to a value of
some US$5 million have now been settled.

That's probably enough for me -- okay only a little over 10% but not the patience for a price taker like this

New HMS research article Click HERE