Bumi Armada in joint bid for 4 marginal field deals

KUALA LUMPUR: Bumi Armada Bhd, a Malaysia-based
international offshore oil field services provider, has submitted bids
for four marginal fields under the next round of bid to develop such
fields offshore Malaysia.





Bumi Armada chief executive officer Hassan Assad Basma said the group
has identified two potential independent oil companies (IOCs) to
jointly bid for the marginal fields.

However, he declined to disclose the two IOCs and the four areas that the company are interested to bid.

"It is too early to tell. We are still at the bidding stage, but we
hope for success in our bids," Hassan told reporters when announcing
the company's first quarter financial results ended March 31 here
yesterday.

Early this year, Petronas had said that the company
has identified 22 marginal fields to be awarded to potential oil and
gas players this year.


Last year, Petronas awarded the risk service contract
licence to two group of companies to develop the Berantai and Balai
cluster marginal fields.

At the same time, he said Bumi Armada is also bidding to provide five
floating, production, storage and offload (FPSO) vessels this year.

"We expect to see the same amount of bidding for the FPSO from June
onwards and as like last year, we hope to secure at least two contracts.

"We are bidding to supply the FPSO in India, Australia, Nigeria and
Angola as well as in Malaysia," Hassan said, adding that each FPSO cost
between US$700 million and US$800 million (RM2.2 billion-RM2.51
billion).

With three FPSOs in operation and two more under conversion, Bumi Armada is the sixth largest FPSO operator in the world.

He also said Bumi Armada's current firm order backlog surpassed RM7
billion as end March 31 and optional backlog of RM3 billion.

"With this amount of backlog, this would keep us busy up to six years," Hassan said.

On its first quarter results, he said the group posted a net profit of
RM89.7 million, up by 9.3 per cent, over the same quarter 2011.

However, its revenue fell by 10.9 per cent to RM227.3 million during the period.