Tan Sri Dato' Seri Shahril Shamsuddin, President and Group CEO commented:
“The Group generated revenues of RM 2.3 billion and profit before tax of RM 336 million in the first quarter of FY2016.
For our services divisions, the operating profit remained at similar levels when compared to the same quarter in FY2015 and margins maintained at 21%.
The global oil and gas industry remains in a challenging environment driven by the uncertainty in crude oil prices. In response, a majority of producers have resorted to reducing capital expenditure. Within this context, we anticipate to face pressure on our profit margins and have taken proactive steps to ensure we remain resilient.
Despite the industry downturn, our financial results and the recently announced contract wins in Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Mexico are indications that there are still opportunities to be realised.
We continue to expand our footprint in Latin America with our entry into Mexico. We have established local operations, SapuraKencana Mexicana in view of longer-term presence and opportunities.
We anticipate these challenging conditions to persist and to complement our efforts in market expansion, we are focused on optimising our costs and driving precision in execution.
Our recently announced multi-currency Sukuk worth RM 7 billion issued both in USD and MYR further optimises our capital management while keeping total debt constant.
We continue to foster social responsibility programmes to contribute to a better community. The floods that impacted several states in Malaysia last year caused devastation to the affected communities. To assist the flood relief programmes, we offered support in the form of funds, supplies, and volunteers.
As part of our commitment to the nation, we have donated an offshore platform to the Malaysian Ministry of Defence. In collaboration with Petroliam Nasional Berhad (“PETRONAS”), the mobile offshore production unit has undergone refurbishment and will be used as a forward military base offshore Sabah to enhance maritime border security as announced by the Minister of Defence in April 2015.
The Group would like to express our gratitude to our shareholders for their continued support in what we do. I am pleased to announce that the Board of Directors has approved the payment of an interim dividend of 1.35 sen per share.
Our focus for FY2016 remains on replenishing the orderbook, optimising costs and executing our work with precision to deliver projects to our customers safely, on-time and on-budget. We will spare no effort in ensuring adaptability and resilience in working through this latest downturn of the oil and gas industry.”