Norwegian super-contactor Aker Solutions has announced first quarter net profit of 619 million kroner ($94.7 million), down seven percent year-on-year as new orders shrunk by 255 million kroner ($39 million) to 10.73 billion kroner ($164.2 million) and company debt gets set to swell.

Borrowing was readied for a purchases of “forward-looking companies” from Aker Solutions, and now net debt stood at 3.67 billion kroner ($561.6 million) by the end of March and expected to grow by year-end to up to $5 billion ($765 million). In exchange Aker Oilfield, Aker DOF Deepwater and ODIM are expected to launch the supplier-contractor into a future of deepwater development.

The result came on the strength of operating revenues that reached 14.97 billion ($2.29 million), a five-percent hike over the same three months a year ago.

In fact, Aker Solutions could point to a “high level” of invitations to bid on projects, and the quarter confirmed its “mega-contractor” status with contracts in the hundreds of millions of dollars for the North Sea’s major world players.

But although maintenance orders will fill company books through 2011, new subsea orders have fallen off by some 700 million kroner ($107 million). A 14 percent hike in sub-sea earnings was chalked up to lucrative after-market service.

But recent orders abound, and the company disclosed some of the terms of the big contracts won in the quarter. Some of the “forward-looking” work will be the building of a “European CO2 Technology Centre” at the Mongstad refinery in southwest Norway, where Aker Clean Carbon will supervise and insert its technology, while Aker Solutions builds to earn most of the “value” in subsidiary Aker Clean Carbon’s 525-million-kroner-contract.

In-line with most in the industry, Aker Solutions’s board said it sees the industry’ current failure to replace what oil and gas it produces as grounds for the “likely” energy deficit “ which could boost the level of activity when demand recovers”.

Tags: Aker Clean Carbon, Aker Solutions