Singapore’s Swiber Holdings clinched a sum of US$405.6 million for a series of contracts, including its latest $333 million agreement for engineering, procurement, installation and construction (EPIC) services in India.
This contract, Swiber said, is the second award to the firm by the same Indian national oil company (NOC) in just over a month, despite the downturn in the industry.
Projected for immediate commencement, work scope includes the transportation and installation of submarine pipelines and engineering works and modification of existing facilities.
“We are pleased to have clinched another major project from the same client in India this month. Going into the tender, we exercised stringent cost analysis and took into consideration the inhouse and shared resources within the group,” said CEO Francis Wong. “We were confident that our strategy of investing in a suite of marine assets and our ability to integrate our offshore EPIC and offshore marine services would give us competitive advantage over bidders who did not own their own assets.”
In recent months, Swiber also clinched a few other smaller contracts for mooring, jackup installation and offshore pipeline and subsea work in the Asia Pacific region, boosting its order book to over $1.8 billion.
Last year, the group picked up offshore field development project in West Africa worth $710 million and three contracts amounting to around $145 million for works to be executed in Latin America and Southeast Asia.
The $310 million contract from the same Indian NOC in February 2015 was also for a full suite of EPIC services for eight new platforms and associated pipelines of a new offshore gas field.
Phase I expected to be completed by 2Q 2016 and Phase II for 1Q 2017. The new contract in India is expected to start contributing to the Group’s earnings in 2Q 2015, ending 30 June 2015.
Swiber’s asset-based strategy, Wong said, meant that it was able to optimize vessel usage and lower mobilization costs. “Swiber will continue to mitigate market pressures by maximizing usage of its vessels and equipment, negotiating with suppliers to greater advantage, monitoring debt, reining in cash collection, and cutting costs.”