On 3rd July PFC announced that it was trading well ahead of expectations. Not surprisingly, sp jumped but has now fallen back pretty much to the same level as before the announcement.

While perhaps not as exciting as finding the next Cairn, remember that in the goldrush days, it was rarely the prospectors who made the money, but rather the suppliers of the spades and tents and stuff - e.g. Levis if memory serves me aright.

346p. A very nice low resistance level to rise from..especially when Opec cut their production levels again.

L&G slip below 5% holding today.

Good to see you interested here cyners.

Gone into these after viewing brokers reports over the last few days.

plenty of them issuing Buys and I suppose they cant all be wrong.

if I can lay my hands on the reports ILL post them.

More support for PFC...

Glance-STOCKS NEWS EUROPE-Amec falls with Wood Group; UBS downgrade
AFX


STOCKS NEWS Reuters Results diary

Stocks on the move Real-time Equity News



09:54GMT 17Dec2008-Amec falls with Wood Group; UBS downgrade

------------------------------------------------------------

Shares in Amec fall 3.7 percent reflecting oil services peer John

Wood Group's cautious trading update and after UBS cuts its rating for

Amec to 'neutral' from 'buy' on valuation grounds.

UBS says Amec has outperformed sharply since early October and acquisitions

moves are likely to be negative for the stock in the short term.

The broker says it prefers Wood Group and Petrofac to Amec.

UBS upgrades its rating for Petrofac to 'buy' from 'neutral' following a

site visit as it believe the risk of cost overruns for the group is lower than

it had previously assumed.

The broker also notes Petrofac shares have underperformed over the past few

months.

Petrofac shares lose 1.3 percent also impacted by the cautious Wood Group

statement. Wood Group shares are down 5.9 percent.

For more on Wood Group double click on

Reuters Messaging rm://jon.hopkins.reuters.com@reuters.net

Solid update which reassures.....

RNS Number : 3514K
Petrofac Limited
18 December 2008









Thursday, 18 December 2008




PETROFAC LIMITED




TRADING UPDATE




Petrofac, the international oil & gas facilities service provider, issues the following pre-close trading update ahead of the announcement of its audited results for the year ending 31 December 2008, expected to be on 9 March 2009.




The group's good operational performance has continued in the second half of the year and the Board anticipates that, in the absence of unforeseen circumstances, the group's net profit for 2008 will be in line with current market expectations (see note below).




In the Engineering & Construction division the execution of projects in-hand is progressing well. Notwithstanding increased market uncertainty following the recent rapid fall in the oil price, the division's bidding activity continues at a high level. At the time of the group's Interim Results in August we referred to a bidding pipeline in excess of US$10 billion. Of these prospects, the division has secured a US$543 million contract with the Kuwait Oil Company for the engineering, procurement and construction of a gas pipeline to the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery. All the other prospects referred to at the time of the Interim Results are still being actively pursued, as are a number of new bids. The outlook for the bidding pipeline for 2009 continues to be promising.




The Operations Services division continues to deliver sound operational performance across its portfolio of UKCS and international contracts although its financial performance has been impacted by the recent weakness of Sterling (with around three-quarters of the division's revenues being Sterling denominated) and slower than anticipated build-up in activity in some of the new training centres opened during the year. The acquisition of Eclipse Petroleum Technology Limited and Caltec Limited during the second half of the year has enhanced the group's ability to deliver solutions to customers to improve production, particularly for mature fields.




In the Energy Developments division, the Cendor field, offshore Peninsular Malaysia, has produced, on average, in excess of 14,000 barrels per day during the year to date. Development of the conceptual design work for the second phase of the Cendor field is progressing, with a final investment decision expected during the second half of 2009 and the recent appraisal drilling programme has yielded promising results. In Tunisia, the commercial export of gas from the Chergui gas plant commenced in August and the facility is now processing near its capacity of 20 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd). Work is underway to increase the capacity of the plant to 25 mmscfd. Significant progress was made during the year in developing the West Don and Don Southwest fields in the UK North Sea where first oil is expected to be achieved during the first half of 2009. The Northern Producer floating production facility is now on location and most of the subsea construction work has been completed. The development of the Don facilities is on budget and on schedule and the drilling programme has commenced with final completion operations underway on the first production well on West Don. As announced in April, the division has been evaluating taking a ten per cent equity interest in the Ebla development in Syria. After a thorough review of the opportunity the division has decided not to invest in the development.




As at 31 December 2008, total backlog is expected to be approximately US$4.0 billion (31 December 2007: US$4.4 billion) comprising approximately US$2.4 billion from the Engineering & Construction division (31 December 2007: US$2.5 billion) and approximately US$1.6 billion from the Operations Services division (31 December 2007: US$1.9 billion). The majority of the Operations Services division's backlog is denominated in Sterling and on a constant currency basis (at 31 December 2007 exchange rates) increased marginally to US$2.0 billion. The group expects its gross cash balances at the end of the year to be around US$600 million.



Ayman Asfari, group chief executive of Petrofac, commented:




'We are very pleased with the performance of the group over the year which has delivered record revenue and profits.




While we recognise that there will be some pressure on discretionary spending by some of our customers, our backlog gives us good revenue visibility. Furthermore, our Engineering & Construction division's focus on onshore developments in the Middle East and North Africa and our effective cost structure gives us a strong competitive position. This, together with the strength of our bidding pipeline, gives us confidence in the outlook for 2009 and beyond.




The group has a strong balance sheet and we are well positioned to take advantage of any opportunities that may arise from current market conditions.'







Note:

The current market expectations for Petrofacs net profit for the year ending 31 December 2008, referred to earlier in this announcement, are based on forecasts provided to Petrofac by 13 equity analysts since publication of the groups Interim Results in August 2008. The average of those forecasts is US$259.6 million.



Ends







Conference call




A telephone conference call for analysts will be held at 9am today (please contact Bell Pottinger for details).




For further information, please contact:




Petrofac Limited +44 (0) 20 7811 4900

a synopsis of the BUY recommendation in today's telegraph following yesterday's outstanding results ..... I have been out of these for a good while, but have just bought back in .....


Questor says BUY
managed to beat expectations in its full-year results ..... around 6pc ahead of consensus ....... Gross cash balances at the end of 2008 stood at $694.4m, an increase of $112.8m over the year ...... very little debt, which means its net cash position stands at $551.8m ..... net margins in 2009 would be in line with recent levels, implying margins of 9pc to 10pc.

The shares are trading on a 2009 prospective multiple of 7.8 times, falling to 6.3 times in 2010. This is historically very low and the shares will almost certainly be re-rated when the oil price eventually gets moving again.

The company expects to post further growth this year and the company's backlog has increased the certainty of earnings all the way out 2011.

PFC putting in another strong performance today on the back of yet another juicy contract landed ...... next challenge is 200 dma at 500 exactly, so almost a double hurdle ...... fingers crossed

Solid outfit in a liquid sector, what more can we ask?

sp has gone ballistic again this morning ..... straight through 200 dma with nary a pause for breath .... looks like pretty heavy volume too, but will need to check that out latr

Recent contract wins have really got them going, starting with the 2.3bn Abu Dhabi contract in January, then this weeks $2.2bn contract in Algeria. Now today we have very strong results from AMEC which should underline the value in this sector.

perhaps the AMEC results are having a knock-on effect .... who knows?
possible, though unlikely, is that someone is stake building

Check out the latest research document from Hanson westhouse on on Oil/Gas services companies, its a very interesting update.

See below

www.oilbarrel.com/fileadmin/content/pdfs/Brokers_Notes_Mar09/Oil_Services_Sector_review_02-03-09.pdf

a clue! ..... Petrofac upgraded to buy from neutral at UBS and buy from add at RBS.

..So they agree with us then -):

they've been following the thread

i'll try not to get overexcited about this company, though i have been a fan for a long time ...... current chart is very encouraging and will be the more so if the recent fhigh of 680 can be broken with impetus

in any case, as i have posted elsewhere, the oil service industry is coming back to life pretty quickly on the back of the improving crude price (watch LAM too, not least as a t/o target)

Business Financial Newswire
"Oil & gas services provider Petrofac has been awarded a $2.1bn integrated gas development contract in Abu Dhabi.

It's 50%-owned joint venture, Petrofac Emirates, in partnership with GS E&C, has received a letter of award from GASCO for a contract with a value to Petrofac of around $1bn.

The 48-month lump-sum contract, which is due to start in August, is for the construction of the 4th NGL train at the Ruwais complex in Abu Dhabi.

This is the first project to be awarded to Petrofac Emirates, a JV with Mubadala Petroleum Services established in November last year."

particularly heavy traffic in PFC today as well as an exceptionally strong sp .... probably something of nothing, but worth noting though no rns

aha! .....

Oil sector services group Petrofac was the biggest FTSE100 gainer at high noon, up 74p at 824.5p, benefiting from an ugrade to buy at UBS with a 1,000p target price.

just for the moment - i guess because i am an active trader - i have just locked in a very respectable profit.

however, if we have a couple of bad days, the odds for which must surely be quite short, i am quite sure i shall buy back in