Oilfield service firm Hunting has reported a “significantly improved outlook for the industry for 2022 and beyond”.
In a trading update from the company today (June 29), chief executive Jim Johnson said: “With the oil price firmly above $70 per barrel, along with the production discipline seen within the Opec (producers’) group and the improving global economic outlook, management expect a gradual improvement in hydrocarbon demand in the short to medium term.”
The firm added: “Given the stronger oil price environment, we believe that as client cash flows improve capital expenditures will also increase, leading to robust demand for the group’s products and services supported by a significantly improved outlook for the industry for 2022 and beyond.”
Hunting also revealed it had clinched its first “sizeable order” for a pioneering technology that uses microbes to increase hydrocarbon production. The order has been placed by an unnamed client in the Middle East and includes a 30-well treatment programme. The contract value was udisclosed.
The organic oil recovery (OOR) technology, developed alongside California-based Titan Oil Recovery, was piloted on CNOOC’s Scott platform in the UK North Sea last year.
It helped licence partners record the biggest measured oil output from the tested well on Scott in more than five years, delivering an additional 25,000 barrels.
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OOR is the first technology to come through Hunting’s Tek-Hub in Portlethen, near Aberdeen.
Specially prepared nutrient packages are injected into the reservoir where they feed indigenous microbes, which can multiply exponentially.
The microbes spreads throughout the formation, helping to break up and mobilise previously trapped oil droplets, which are then produced.
On track for higher earnings
Hunting said its projected 2021 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation would be “below previous expectations” but ahead of the 2020 full-year result of £18.85 million.
So far this year, the London-headquartered firm’s onshore businesses have traded ahead of expectations.
But this was more than offset by a lower performance from its offshore and international businesses.
The group’s global headcount is about 1,900, compared to nearly 3,000 at year-end 2019.
