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il and gas service company Elnusa has taken its first-quarter net profits nearly 50 percent higher than last year on the back of an efficiency strategy that aims to boost its bottom line.

The publicly listed drilling service, according to its recent financial statement, posted a 47 percent increase in net profits, to Rp 53.59 billion (US$4.6 million) during the first three month of this year, from Rp 36.46 billion during the same period last year.

The company recorded Rp 918.3 billion in revenue this year, down by about 12 percent year-on-year (yoy), compared to Rp 1.05 trillion recorded in the first quarter of last year.

Elnusa corporate secretary Fajriyah Usman said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that the company had been applying an '€œaggressive selective'€ strategy over the past two years to support its long-term business stability.

'€œWe are no longer revenue-hungry; we are now becoming hungrier for profits by selecting only quality, cost-efficient projects with higher profit margins, even though that means there is an amount of revenue we have to sacrifice,'€ Fajriyah explained.

'€œWe have also become more selective in choosing our clients, so that we focus our partnerships only on big companies, to reduce the possibility of project delays that can lead to more costs.'€

Fajriyah added that the company was still focusing on drilling and oil field services and potential seismic projects.

In a bid to focus more on its best segments, the company also reduced its number of downstream services that generated low margins and gave no added value.

The company'€™s net profit margin went up to 6 percent during the first quarter of this year, compared to 3 percent during the same period last year.

The company managed to trim its cost of revenue by about 15 percent to Rp 770.51 billion between January and March this year, compared to Rp 910.29 billion recorded during the same period last year.

Elnusa'€™s gross operating profit went up 9 percent year-on-year (yoy) to Rp 147.78 billion in the first quarter, while its operating profit was up by about 41 percent yoy to Rp 101.4 billion.

The company, a subsidiary of state oil and gas giant PT Pertamina, made Rp 238 billion in net profits in 2013, up 86 percent from Rp 138 billion in 2012.

Elnusa is now aiming to reap Rp 4.9 trillion in revenue this year, a 19 percent rise from the figure of Rp 4.1 trillion last year.

Fajriyah said the company was working on a $42 million investment to purchase core business equipment, which was expected to help the company stream more revenue this year.

The company plans to allocate Rp 1.2 trillion to its annual investment fund, a figure nearly three times the Rp 447 billion earmarked in 2013.

Earlier this month, Elnusa signed a US$11.2 million term loan from the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. to finance two projects.

The funds will go toward business expansion in low- and medium-risk energy-related services, with the aim of driving up recurring income.

The first project is the construction of an accommodation work barge, the Elnusa Samudra 8, requiring around $8 million of investment and roughly a year to complete.

The second project, which will require around $3 million of the loans, is the acquisition of a coiled tubing unit (CTU) by the middle of this year.