Elnusa sees rising revenue

Alfian ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 11/06/2009 2:35 PM  |  Business

Local upstream oil and gas service company PT Elnusa expects to increase revenue by up to Rp 400 billion (US$41.99 million) next year, or 18.18 percent higher than this year's estimated revenue.

Elnusa's operation director Eddy Sjahbuddin said the company was set for an improved performance next year on the back of rising contracts and orders, driven by economic recovery.

Eddy said the company estimated it would book Rp 2.6 trillion revenue in 2010, reflecting the anticipated improved economy, up from Rp 2.2 trillion, which is the company's more modest revenue target for this year.

"We will work on a big seismic survey project next year and this will contribute most to the *projected* revenue increase," Eddy said.

He added that the seismic survey service had been the biggest single contributor to Elnusa's revenue; contributing about 65 percent of the company total revenue in the current year, perhaps reflecting the key role of the technology in exploration techniques to try and increase oil and gas production.

For this year, the company targeted to earn Rp 1.2 trillion in revenue from the seismic survey services.

"We expect that this revenue will increase to Rp 1.4 trillion in 2010," Eddy said.

Apart from seismic survey services, Elnusa also offers drilling and oil field services with each service contribute about 17.5 percent to the company's annual revenue.

Eddy said that both the drilling and oil field services were also expected to book higher revenue in 2010, given higher levels of exploration and increasing production of new fields.

The revenue from the drilling service is expected to increase from between Rp 300 billion and Rp 400 billion, which is the revenue target for 2009, to somewhere between Rp 400 billion and Rp 500 billion in 2010.

As for the oil field service, the revenue is expected to increase from this year target of Rp 600 billion to between Rp 600 billion and Rp 700 billion in 2010.

"We will be more active next year," Eddy said.

In an earlier media conference, Elnusa's president director Eteng A. Salam, said that, as of the end of third quarter of 2009, Elnusa had secured upstream oil and gas service contracts amounting to $342 million.

"Now, we are also eyeing new contracts with the total *potential* value amounting to $125 million," Eteng said.

In the third quarter of 2009, Elnusa booked net profits of Rp 493 billion, up by 383 percent from the same period last year.

Eddy said that Elnusa now was preparing to develop and expand its offshore activities.

"We will start by forming *business* affiliations with other existing companies," he said.

Currently, of the total company's seismic survey activities, only about 30 percent of all activity is conducted offshore.

For the drilling activities, the offshore part is only 10 percent. But, the company's offshore operation for oil field service has reached 80 percent of its total operation in the service.

Elnusa's shareholders include state oil and gas company PT Pertamina (owning 41.10 percent of shares); PT Tri Daya Easta (37.15 percent); the investing public (20 percent); and others (1.75 percent).

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